POWELL’S CHAPEL: A LIVING LEGACY OF FAITHFULNESS

MURFREESBORO — The words of “How Great Thou Art” rose to the rafters of Powell’s Chapel Baptist Church on a hot Sunday morning as about 200 congregants celebrated a milestone 150 years in the making on July 27.

Women fanned themselves, children squirmed in wooden pews, and men shook hands as the small church overflowed with members marking the sesquicentennial of their beloved congregation.

“It is such a blessing to be part of a church that has prevailed for 150 years,” said Cindy Phillips, whose great-great-grandmother, Callie Hood Jones, was among the 10 charter members who established the church in 1875.

Jones and other “hard-working, dedicated and faithful people followed the leadership of the Holy Spirit and started a church in this community to glorify God and make Him known to others,” Phillips said.

Humble beginnings

The year was 1875. The American Civil War still scarred the nation as the South struggled through Reconstruction. But in a small corner of northeastern Rutherford County, the Rev. W.D. Powell was preaching revival sermons at the abandoned Shady Grove Methodist Church.

Following those meetings, several community members joined together to form a new congregation under Powell’s leadership. Powell, a Union University graduate when the school was located in Murfreesboro, led the group as they formally chartered on July 25, 1875.

The congregation unanimously voted to name their new church Powell’s Chapel Baptist Church.

Powell served as the first pastor, but his tenure was brief. In October 1875, the church elected and ordained its first deacons — John B. Vaughter and William Short — completing the church’s organization. Powell then resigned as pastor.

Instead, the 21-year-old minister went on to establish the first Hispanic Baptist church in San Antonio in 1888 and became one of the first Baptist missionaries to serve in Mexico.

Growth and expansion

Despite losing their founding pastor, the new church flourished.

In 1903, Concord Association records show Powell’s Chapel baptized 26 people — more than any other church in the association. By the 1980s, Powell’s Chapel still led the association in baptisms.

Growth necessitated expansion. In 1907, the church exchanged its original land with R.H. Henderson for a lot about a half mile south and erected a new, modern building. Fire destroyed that structure on March 10, 1929, but the congregation rebuilt before year’s end.

Bethany Hawkins, a former member who wrote her Master’s thesis on the history of the church, found an old newspaper clipping describing Powell’s Chapel as “one of the best country churches. It even has electric lights.”

The church continued expanding to serve its community. Sunday school rooms were added behind the main building in 1942.

Over the following decades, volunteers and congregation members built additional classrooms, restrooms and educational buildings to accommodate the growing membership.

An enduring legacy

While the surrounding landscape has changed dramatically since 1875 — family farms no longer encircle the church — the congregation continues its mission in a growing community.

“Through many obstacles and challenges, along with much joy, this church has endured,” Phillips said. “We are following in their footsteps, and many others will follow in ours. We are reminded daily of God’s faithfulness and the blessings He has entrusted to us and our church.”

Pastor Todd Wermers, who has led the congregation for about 10 years, sees the anniversary as both celebration and recommitment.

“Pastoring a church like Powell’s Chapel is a sacred privilege,” Wermers said. “To stand in a place that has been kept by God for 150 years reminds me that this ministry was never built on personalities or programs — but on a faithful God and a called people.”

The milestone is particularly significant given that about 3,000 churches close annually, and most congregations have a lifespan of 80 years, Wermers cited from a recent study.

“This celebration isn’t just about looking back,” Wermers said. “It’s about recommitting ourselves to the calling, the love and the keeping power of Christ for the next generation.” B&R — Note: Information for this article was taken from “A Narrative History of Powell’s Chapel Baptist Church” written by the Centennial Committee in 1975 and from notes by the church’s first historian, Luther M. Vaughter, in 1930, and by Bethany L. Hawkins in 2014.