CREEDE HINSHAW: Many small-town churches mirror dormancy of their locations

Last week my wife and I drove a 100-mile backroad stretch of U.S. Highway 80 from Twin City to Macon. In terms of other state and county highways, U.S. 80 is a main thoroughfare with wide, well-maintained flanking ditches.

Nevertheless, I would categorize U.S. 80, which traverses Georgia west to east from the Chattahoochee River to the Atlantic Ocean and connects south Georgia’s three largest cities, Columbus, Macon and Savannah, as backroad. Along it stretches miles of pine forest, open fields, marshland, cotton fields, and peach and pecan orchards. Creeks and rivers with Native American names beckon while nameless communities and small towns punctuate the south Georgia vastness.

All along our route we saw evidence of the faith of Georgians. Many homes have erected crosses in their front yards, that Christian symbol now competing with both sacred and secular Christmas decorations, some yards displaying all of the above. Along the way, a hand-painted sign, leaning against a large wooden cross, advertised a “haunted forest” on Oct. 31, presumably both cross and the “forest” the ministry of a congregation hoping to frighten a few folks into salvation. In many yards stood small signs designed in red and blue with the words “Jesus 2020.” These messages, the inspiration of two women from a small Alabama Baptist Church, probably represent the faith of much of south Georgia.

Churches of every denomination and independent variety dot this federal highway: Pentecostal, Missionary Baptist, Southern Baptist, Primitive Baptist, Latter Day Saints, Catholic, Presbyterian and dozens of independent congregations with creatively named congregations located in storefronts or substantial buildings. Many of the independent churches were found in the countryside, while the churches from recognizable denominations sat in towns along the route.

Being a United Methodist pastor, I was most interested in noting these church buildings in the little towns of Twin City, Danville, Allentown, Montrose, Dudley, Adrian, Jeffersonville, Swainsboro and Dublin (the largest settlement between Macon and Savannah). With the possible exception of Dublin, I suspect many of these Wesleyan churches are remembering a grander past.

I was struck by the near-death and dormancy of many of these communities founded a century ago along a once-vital railroad. Collapsing commercial buildings and rotting, overgrown homes define almost all of these towns. The rural churches situated in these communities remained the vital core of the town as recently as half a century ago. But now many of these same places of worship likely mirror the communities in which they sit, easily offering an aging congregation the means to socially distance in sanctuaries built to hold 10 to 20 times the numbers of worshippers.

Of course, there are thriving, vital congregations in these small towns. I am in awe of and admiration of the Georgia rural churches, many whose congregations know how to survive in times of plenty and times of scarcity. Many will ride out the pandemic, too, but long after the virus is conquered, our smaller communities face a future for which there is no vaccine.