Occasion to celebrate

The old church that was the center of the community 100 years ago will once again be the center of attention this weekend.

Foothills Community Church on Forker Road is celebrating its centennial with a barbecue and gospel sing on Saturday and special presentations on Sunday. The old church, now a fellowship hall, is still standing at Forker and Peck roads.

The church, which started as a Methodist-Episcopal congregation, began when several ladies went around to the neighbors and asked for donations to build the church, said the Rev. Jerry Kennedy. After it was built, the church often hosted community dinners and events. “The church and the school were the center of activity,” said Kennedy, who has served as the church’s pastor for 23 years. “It was built with lumber sawed at the little mill that used to be across the street.”

The church has largely retained its rural flavor despite additions and remodeling. “It had an old pot bellied stove and high, high ceilings,” said Kennedy of the original sanctuary. “Things have changed.”

The church has struggled to make it to its centennial. “For those early years there was never a full-time pastor,” he said. “It was on a circuit.”

Still, things went well until the late 1930s. Attendance dropped off, and the church shut down for a few years. It reopened in 1940 with Whitworth students filling the pulpit on Sundays. Then the congregation discovered Village Missions, a national organization that provides full-time pastors to rural churches and subsidizes their salaries. A Village Mission pastor has led the church since 1951, except for a brief break in the mid-1950s.

The church does not belong to any denomination and attracts members from a variety of faith backgrounds. “We try to really major in the majors and minor in the minors,” he said. “If we put any label on the door we’d alienate two-thirds of our congregation.”

The church is now thriving with an average of 400 people attending two Sunday services each week. Kennedy’s salary is no longer subsidized by Village Missions, and two more people have been added to the paid staff. “The Lord’s been awfully good to us.”