144-year-old Idaho church survives and thrives
MIDVALE, IDAHO — Sunflowers and knee-high yellow grass line U.S.…
More than a family
A 200-year-old country church in Tennessee has stayed rooted in a dwindling community.
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PLEASANT SHADE, TENN. — On a warm, sunny Sunday morning, a church elder parked a 32-foot farm trailer in front of a tiny country church in anticipation of home-cooked meals layered across the makeshift table.
Inside the small wooden church, the theater-style seats began to fill with a capacity crowd for worship and a 200th anniversary celebration that brought together generations of Christians.
“There is love — honest, we love you here,” said Connie Dyer, a longtime member of the Bagdad Church of Christ. “People see it and they feel it.”
Related: 144-year-old Idaho church survives and thrives
The homecoming celebration featured a flatbed trailer loaded with heaps of food, from cakes to barbecue and everything in between. The Sunday service filled every pew, and the sounds of laughter and kids playing echoed through the sanctuary.
The congregation tripled in size that Sunday, with 155 people attending. Edward Anderson, a former minister for the church in the 1960s, returned to deliver the sermon. Anderson also led a gospel meeting that ran from Sunday to Wednesday.
Homecomings have long been a hallmark of Bagdad, with tables spilling over with homemade dishes and members traveling miles to reconnect with their roots each year.
A sign notes meeting times for the Bagdad Church of Christ.
“They would actually have stretched wire outside and put tablecloths over it,” said Tim Agee, a lifetime Bagdad member and now elder. “There would be so much food. … It was a great meeting, good lessons and good fellowship.”
Founded in 1825, Bagdad exemplifies faith while preserving its small-town traditions.
“The church has been there 200 years — same congregation, same name,” Tim Agee said. “Of course, there have been a lot of different changes since then.”
“The church has been there 200 years — same congregation, same name. Of course, there have been a lot of different changes since then.”
In the two centuries since the church’s inception, the worship hall has undergone numerous changes, including the construction of a new building after a fire and the addition of a fellowship hall. Over that period, the overall population of Pleasant Shade shrank as families moved to urban centers in pursuit of job opportunities.
But the Bagdad congregation continues to host a healthy crowd of varying ages for worship. A typical Sunday morning church service averages 50 members, from gray-haired Christians to a bouncing baby boy.
Bagdad elder Tim Agee opens a worship service with a Scripture reading during the church’s 200th homecoming.
If you ask any member of the congregation, Sunday meals every month are a highlight of the tight-knit church family.
Due to an interpretation of Scripture, church elders first rejected the idea of eating in the church building, opting instead to eat at members’ homes or in front of the church.
But over time, the need for a place to cook and store food led the church to add a fellowship hall in the 1990s.
“We do not have any bickering and squabbling,” said Stan Agee, an elder. “We are like a family — more really, more than anything. You can tell that we enjoy being together, and we have a lot in common.”
“We do not have any bickering and squabbling. We are like a family — more really, more than anything. You can tell that we enjoy being together, and we have a lot in common.”
As the congregation looks back on 200 years of services, hymns and generations of families, members suggest that the future of the church can be seen in the youngest faces sitting in the pews or lying on the floor.
During Sunday services, young men in the church step forward and lead the congregation in song before the main worship service begins.
For most members, singing a cappella hymns from song books passed from generation to generation is one of the church’s defining traditions. The congregation fills the sanctuary with a tapestry of voices singing hymns like the “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” and “The Old Rugged Cross.”
Members of the Bagdad church look over the trailer full of homemade dishes during the church’s 200th homecoming celebration.
“We’re known for our singing at Bagdad,” Tim Agee said. “A lot of people like to come because the building’s acoustics are really good, but I think we’ve also got some good singers.”
For older members, watching young families and children grow up within the church is a reminder of Bagdad’s continuing story and the enduring work of God.
“We look around at the kids and just say, ‘Thank you, God,’” Dyer said. “They are our future.”
As Pleasant Shade has grown quieter across decades, the small church along the creek bed continues to fill its pews with families, songs and fellowship.
Over 200 years after its founding, members say the foundation of the Bagdad Church of Christ has never been the building itself, but the generations of people who continue to walk through its doors each morning looking to carry out one thing: praise to their God.
“When you walk through those doors,” Dyer said, “you’re family.”
EPHRAIM RODENBACH is a sophomore sports journalism major at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. He’s the lead sports reporter for the MTSU Sidelines student newspaper.
