Across the Nation: Worship in a funeral home, leaving a 100-year-old church building and more quick takes

Across the Nation is our monthly rundown of news briefs, links and quotes from Churches of Christ across the U.S. Got an idea for this column? Email Calvin Cockrell at [email protected].

Featured image (above): A decaying 109-year-old building led the Somerset Church of Christ in Pennsylvania to purchase a new property from a closing Christian Church.

MICHIGAN

ALLENDALE — A group of about 20 Christians gather each week in this southwest Michigan community to worship God — in a funeral home.

In Steve Deming’s childhood, he and his parents traveled 20 miles of rural — often snow-covered — Michigan roads out of Allendale to worship with the Grand Haven Church of Christ. Later, they worshiped with the Grandville Church of Christ 15 miles in the other direction, toward Grand Rapids.

But they and other Christians in Allendale always longed for their own place to worship.

The Allendale Church of Christ in Michigan meets in a funeral home.

In 2021, Deming and his wife, Rebecca, resolved to make it happen. They planted a Church of Christ that met in the local school gym.

But with the weekly labor of setting up chairs, equipment, songbooks and other items needed for worship — and then taking them all back out again — church members began looking for a better solution.

That’s when Deming learned of a little-used room available for rent at a funeral home.

It has allowed the Allendale Church to worship and leave furniture and equipment in the space for all but a few days a year, sharing a kitchen, bathrooms and parking with the funeral home.

PENNSYLVANIA

SOMERSET — The Somerset Church of Christ has moved from its 109-year-old building into the former Roof Garden Christian Church meeting place.

As the Christian Church was preparing to close its doors, elders approached Somerset about purchasing the Christian Church’s 30-year-old building. They wanted it to remain in the hands of another church with Restoration Movement heritage.

A decaying 109-year-old building led the Somerset Church of Christ in Pennsylvania to purchase a new property from a closing Christian Church.

Meanwhile, Somerset’s red-brick building needed an estimated $250,000 in cosmetic and structural repairs, including $60,000 to rebuild its wheelchair ramp.

When Roof Garden offered the property, including a 300-seat auditorium and 6 acres of land, for only $100,000 — and Somerset received an offer of $40,000 for its own property — church leaders felt they couldn’t refuse the opportunity, minister Jimmy Hinton said.

The Somerset church purchased its new red-roof building from the Roof Garden Christian Church.

The Somerset church had originally split from First Christian Church in 1910, just four years after Christian Churches and Churches of Christ were recognized separately on the 1906 U.S. Census.

The split was led by William and Luella Parkhill. After William died, Luella used her wealth to construct the congregation’s first building in 1916.

NEWSMAKERS 

BAPTIZED — ANNETTE CARTER of the Eastside Church of Christ in Oklahoma City. DEXTER CASHER of the Bellingrath Road Church of Christ in Theodore, Ala. SHELBA DAVIS of the Paintsville Church of Christ in Kentucky. PIPER HUDDLESTON of the Waterview Church of Christ in Richardson, Texas. CHANCE and CAMRY STOFFEL of the North Terrace Church of Christ in Zanesville, Ohio.

Staffers at Columbia Academy in Tennessee display their School of the Year Award.

HONORED — COLUMBIA ACADEMY in Tennessee as School of the Year by the National Christian School Association. “What shines brightest at Columbia Academy is not simply their academic achievement or impressive growth, but their unwavering commitment to forming students who reflect the heart of Jesus,” said NCSA President Andrew Baker. Columbia Academy is associated with Churches of Christ. RACHEL HACKETT as Teacher of the Year for Lewis County Elementary School in Hohenwald, Tenn. She is a member of the Lomax Church of Christ in Hohenwald, where her husband Jon preaches.

NAMED — PAUL COCKRELL as minister for the Hillview Church of Christ in Forestdale, Ala. TYLER GILREATH as minister for the Church of Christ at Sevierville in Tennessee. SARAH HOUSLEY as the inaugural director of Faulkner University’s Cradle Through Independence (CTI) Center, an education and therapy program for children and young adults with autism and other developmental or cognitive disabilities.

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