Georgia history

Georgia

In the early 1930s, Owen Hoffman pitched his tent in a rural community some 15 miles from the town of Washington, which is about 50 miles northwest of Augusta. The tent was usually full to overflowing, and many were saved or strengthened in these meetings. When winter came, the new believers asked to have the Gospel meetings in their homes. Some were baptized and began meeting as an assembly in a rented one-room rural school house. Two brothers who took the lead in the new unnamed assembly were R.R. Whittington and Ned Stamey.

The tent was pitched again the next year in several places nearby, including Washington. Souls were saved despite opposition from townspeople. The following summer, Mr. Hoffman pitched his tent in another town, again with many saved. About 60 were baptized in a pond one Sunday afternoon. Many of these were expelled from their churches because of their baptism as believers.

About 50 of these believers then purchased some land in the country and built a chapel with an adjacent cemetery. The name of this chapel is not known. The work grew, and several full-time brothers ministered, including John Bramhall, Douglas Ibbotson, Frank Detweiler, and Lawrence Chambers.

When people began moving out of the rural areas, this assembly and the one in the schoolhouse merged and built a new two-storied brick chapel in 1949 in the town of Washington, calling it Washington Chapel. The assembly still occupies this building. Allen Rogers, Aage Hoffman, Carl Dawson, and Peter Hoffmann are among those who have led the work at Washington Chapel.

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In the 1930s, H.P. Crowell, the Founder and President of the Quaker Oats Company, had a winter home in Augusta, in which he had a Bible Class attended by Christians from many different denominations. He invited different men to teach the class, including Virgil Hollingsworth. During this period, Virgil Hollingsworth had met brethren such as Harold Harper. He also began reading the writings of brethren who explained God’s plan for the Church and began to teach this in the class at Mr. Crowell’s home. However, none in that class were willing to begin a New Testament church with him.

So, in 1940, the Virgil Hollingsworths, the Liddon Sheridans, and another couple Broke Bread for the first time in the Hollingsworth’s home, the beginning of the first assembly in Augusta. After that they met at the Women’s Club on Greene Street, then at a beauty parlor on Walton Way. At about that time Sue and Gene Hollingworth came into the fellowship. They were followed in the next few months by the families of Hartford Timmerman, Frank Tice, Lewis Douglas, and Warren Hersey. For the first couple of years or so, the assembly was called The Christian Assembly Hall.

After a couple of years of meeting in the beauty parlor, the group purchased and renovated a house on Crawford Avenue near Walton Way. At about that time, they named their meeting place Bethany Chapel. Along with other truths having to do with the Church, Virgil realized that the Bible taught that there should be a multiplicity of elders. Gene Hollingsworth, Hartford Timmerman, and Lewis Douglas were then recognized as the oversight of Bethany Chapel, and others were added later.

Also, at about that time, Owen Hoffman brought his tent to Augusta for a month of evangelistic services. Many were saved and some of them came into fellowship at Bethany Chapel. Mr. Hoffman came back on several occasions to preach in his tent or at Bethany Chapel. Other speakers at Bethany were John Bramhall, Harold Mackay, Lester Wilson, August Van Ryn, A.P. Gibbs, Harold Wildish, Richard Hill, and Welcome Detweiler.

Later the Christians purchased the house next door to the chapel to be used for Sunday School and other activities. In the mid-1940s, the Martintown Road Bible Class was started in North Augusta and depended on speakers from Bethany Chapel to teach it. As a result, a good number of these Christians came into fellowship at Bethany. Also, in the 1940s, some of the brethren from Bethany Chapel, including Tip Welch, Virgil Hollingsworth, and Gene Hollingsworth, would go down almost every Sunday to help at the Savannah Gospel Chapel.

In 1944, many Christians came at about the same time, including the R.E. Barinowski and Thomas Stephens families. Messrs. Barinowski and Stephens were later recognized as elders. Needing more space, the assembly constructed an addition that doubled the capacity of the auditorium.

A few years later these facilities burned to the ground and a new Bethany Chapel was constructed on Milledge Road. A house on the lot was used to house visiting speakers and others, and a gymnasium was constructed later.

Many soldiers were stationed at Fort Gordon in those days. The young people’s group distributed tracts and invited the service men to Bethany Chapel for refreshments and to attend the Gospel Meeting. During the first year, they averaged having eight new soldiers each Sunday. As many as forty service men came on some Sundays. The Christians at Bethany faithfully continued this work for about twenty years, the sisters particularly, being willing to furnish meals and refreshments for this effort. Many of the service men professed faith in the Lord Jesus. One of the service men who came to the meetings was Tom Taylor, who received encouragement to go to Bible School and spend the rest of his life serving the Lord.

Bethany Chapel has commended several to the work of the Lord in foreign lands. A notable ministry at Bethany Chapel is the Labor Day Youth Conference. Each year hundreds of young people from different assemblies and many adults have been blessed through the activities of this conference. The present oversight at Bethany Chapel Clarence Barinowski, T. S. Morgan, Jules Godin, and Ramon Waters has continued this work.

In 1984, Clarence Barinowski obtained a license to operate a radio relay station in Augusta, designated as WLPE. He used this station to relay programs from Moody Broadcasting Network to the CSRA section of Georgia. and other stations in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

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Not long after they were saved, Edgar and Emma Murrah came into fellowship at Bethany Chapel. Having a successful business, they purchased in 1969 three buildings on Broad Street, which they converted into a chapel. In 1970 four families, including the Murrahs, established an assembly known as the Harrisburg Gospel Center. Several years later a chapel was built at 120 Grace Street, not far from the original location. This building has since been sold and those left in fellowship are gathering in nearby Martinez.

A few years after the Harrisburg Gospel Center was started, the Murrahs purchased a farm south of Augusta and established The Gospel Farm. Its purpose was to help young adults experiencing times of trouble. As a result, many of them were saved. Warren Hylton, who worked with Edgar and was in fellowship at the Harrisburg Gospel Center, helped with this project. This property has been sold and The Gospel Farm disbanded.

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During World War II, Lee Lohre moved to Augusta with his family to start the Augusta Rescue Mission. With the help of many local churches, including Bethany Chapel, he was able to provide and sustain this mission, a place where service men from Camp/Fort Gordon could come and be helped with their spiritual needs and enjoy recreational activities. Lee was encouraged by being asked to speak at Bethany Chapel and seeing how the meetings were conducted there. He began to read the New Testament to see what truths were revealed concerning the operation of a local church. As a result, Glendale Bible Chapel was started and continues to operate.

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In 1971, Bernie O’Neill and Dan Hollingsworth, in fellowship at Bethany Chapel, desired to establish an assembly in South Augusta. With the blessing of Bethany, Bible studies were started in September 1972 in a rented building on Lumpkin Road. Believers Gospel Chapel in South Augusta was soon started. Within a few months, the assembly purchased a chapel on Young Drive. Later, 5.5 acres were purchased on Peach Orchard Road, where the present chapel was constructed in 1980. Since then, more Sunday School rooms and a gym have been added. In 1990, the Christians at Believers Gospel Chapel started an Easter Conference, which has continued almost every year since. Sam Thorpe, Jr. was a leading elder at Believers Gospel Chapel for many years, involved in its growth to about 200 people.

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In the latter part of 1995, Bernie O’Neill and Sam Thorpe, two of the elders at Believers Gospel Chapel, believed the Lord was leading them to start an assembly in Lincolnton, north of Augusta. With the blessings of Believers Gospel Chapel, Lakeside Bible Chapel, was established in early 1996.

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In the early 1980s, several Christians in fellowship at Bethany Chapel and who lived in North Augusta, felt the need to establish an assembly in the north part of the city. After much prayer and several meetings with the elders at Bethany Chapel, there seemed to be an agreement that this was in the will of the Lord. In January 1983, this group of Christians met for the first time, calling their meeting place North Augusta Bible Chapel.

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In 1976, Dan Hollingsworth and Jon Reimer at Believers Gospel Chapel, Lee Lohre at Glendale Bible Chapel, Gene Sawyer of Bethany Chapel, and Sam Thorpe Jr. at Kalmia Hill Chapel, Aiken, SC, became interested in starting a Bible school in the Augusta area. The Augusta Center for Biblical Study began in September 1978, meeting first in the facilities of Believers Gospel Chapel in South Augusta. In 1980, five acres of property were purchased on the south side of the city. The new dormitory and classroom building, finished in time for the 1984-85 school year, constituted the start of a campus development program.

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About 25 miles southwest of Augusta is the town of Wrens. As an effort to regather some of a scattered flock, a few believers began meeting together to Remember the Lord in the Wrens Community House in the spring of 1967. Shortly afterward, a small vacant church building was rented and repaired, becoming known as Wrens Bible Chapel. A regular schedule of meetings was undertaken, with the Lord’s Supper given prominence. Among earlier responsible men were P.N. Powell, John F. McCoy, Albert Allen, S.M. Mallard, and Curtis Thigpen.

Some outreach ministries have included a weekly radio program covering Jefferson County, initiated by George Landis in about 1968 and continuing to this day with the ministry of a variety of preachers. Children’s work has included Sunday Schools, vacation Bible schools, and Bible Hours. Missionary support has been accomplished through funds sent to CMML and a ladies’ handicrafts program.

In 1995, some of the men formed a corporation to enable the assembly to have title to real properties pertaining to the assembly. They then purchased the old Gospel Chapel in the nearby town of Avera, and relocation was accomplished in 1998. The Avera Gospel Chapel had been built in 1931 for the meeting place of a young assembly that had resulted from Gospel tent meetings held in the area by Evangelist David Brinkman. The assembly is yet small but looks to the future for blessing as they faithfully minister the Word.

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In 1946, Edmund and Nell Bynes from Waynesboro, south of Augusta, came into fellowship at Bethany Chapel in Augusta. Others from Waynesboro soon followed. After a time, these Christians desired to start an assembly in their home city. The elders at Bethany encouraged them, and Burkehaven Chapel in Waynesboro was begun in 1955 on Park Drive at Church Street. Edmund Byne and Claud Brown were principal movers in starting the new assembly. William McCartney, Robert Love, William Gustafson, and James Gay have been active in leadership. About 70 adults and children attend Burkehaven Chapel.

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The Savannah Gospel Chapel, now called Savannah Bible Chapel, is one of the oldest assemblies in Georgia. The earliest gatherings as an assembly were in the first decade of the twentieth century and took place in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hussey on West 39th Street, Savannah. One of those most instrumental in teaching and encouraging others in New Testament church order was Peter Rabey, who had learned of this through contact with assemblies in South Africa during a trip there. Mr. Hussey was also a gifted Bible teacher. Others who were a part of those early gatherings were Messrs. Judson, Clifford Rowland, Stephen Rabey, Tom Rogers, and Miss Katie Wilkins.

After the first meeting in the Hussey home, the assembly moved to a location near Henry and West Broad Street, to 115 West Park Avenue, to 115 West 40th Street, and then to the present location on Skidaway Road. Many of the well-known brethren preachers ministered at the assembly in the earlier years, of whom we mention J.D. Ibbotson, John Bramhall, and Owen Hoffman. Savannah Bible Chapel continues today, though small.

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A work hived off from the Savannah Gospel Chapel in 1997. Several the saints attending the Savannah meeting lived in the Midway, Hinesville, and Richmond Hill areas south of Savannah and about 30 miles from the chapel. These families met in the homes of Tommy Taylor and Brooks Williams for prayer and Bible study on Wednesday nights. As this meeting grew, they felt the need to establish a local testimony in the area. After two years of meeting, the group now numbers about 50 people. Taking the name Faith Bible Fellowship, the assembly is temporarily meeting in the chapel building at Marsh View Bible Camp in Midway. Leaders are Tommy Taylor, Brooks Williams, John Woods, and Irby Bazemore.

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T. Michael Flowers had been commended to the Lord’s work in 1949 by assemblies in the Bahamas, where he had been born and raised. After he had lived four years in Michigan, Grace Tabernacle in Detroit joined in his commendation. In February 1955, Mr. Flowers moved from Detroit to Savannah, GA, near the southern tip of South Carolina, knowing of no New Testament assemblies among the black population of Georgia. Many months of door-to-door work passed before he saw his first convert or started his first Bible class, and before was he able to bring his family from Detroit. Face to face and over the air this gifted expositor preached the Gospel. He worked also in South Carolina, where he saw the Beaufort Bible Chapel established in 1958.

In 1967, a summer tent crusade was held in Savannah with Tom Skinner as the evangelist. Some 85 out-of-state helpers, half of them young people from the Bahamas, called door-to-door with literature. When the Crusade concluded in August it was followed by about four weeks of Bible teaching and instruction in New Testament principles for the young converts. The crusade gave birth to the Berean Bible Chapel, located on Highway 175, the site where the tent had been pitched.

Berean Bible Chapel was dedicated in February 1968. The speaker was Ed Allen of Nassau, Bahamas, editor of Evangelistic Crusade and director of the Gospel Bells broadcast.

By 1976 there were at least three assemblies in Georgia and four in South Carolina, brought into being largely through the efforts of Mr. Flowers. Besides the two mentioned, these were Community Bible Chapel in Atlanta and Glendale Bible Chapel in Augusta; in South Carolina, they were Grace Tabernacle in Charleston, Grace Bible Chapel, North Charleston, and Grace and Truth Gospel Chapel in St. Helena.

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The assembly meeting at Albany Gospel Chapel in the city of Albany in the southwestern part of the state, began in February 1955. It was instigated by the efforts of a business man, Jacob Bishop, and established by the ministry of Lester Wilson.

Lester Wilson had been pioneering in the Piedmont area of North Carolina. His friend, Jake Bishop of Albany, knowing that Mr. Wilson needed a break, begged him to come to Albany to recuperate and get his strength back. The Bishops had also long wanted a work started in Albany. Mr. Wilson came in the latter part of 1954 and taught at the Bible study group in the Bishop’s home. Those who heard him and saw his ability to explain and teach the Bible were impressed with the power of his presentation of the Word. The Bishops urged him to stay in Albany and establish an assembly there. After much prayer by many, he made the decision to reside in Albany for that purpose. Albany became a permanent settlement for him for the rest of his active days.

To gather a group of interested persons, Messrs. Wilson and Bishop rented a Youth for Christ building. Mr. Wilson established a radio broadcast and Bible studies in various homes. The first assembly in Albany was thus formed in 1955. On the lot adjacent to the building, Mr. Bishop, a building contractor, erected a large tent for Gospel meetings. This structure had sawdust flooring and two wood heaters. The wooden benches did not deter people from coming. In two series on the book of Revelation that year, Mr. Wilson preached to crowds who came to hear his message and the Gospel of salvation, and many accepted Christ.

Then it became evident that a permanent structure should be built. The lot on which the tent was located, at 2556 N. Slappey Drive, was purchased and ground breaking for the Albany Gospel Chapel was held in February 1956. Adjoining property was purchased in 1958, giving additional space for parking and a nursery building. In 1960, a large recreational building was built.

Lester Wilson faithfully preached the Word of God at the Albany Gospel Chapel for nearly 35 years. Due to declining health at age 84, he went to live in 1989 at Pittsboro Christian Retirement Village, where he died a year later. Among the early leaders of the assembly were Mac Marchman, Hugh Roach, Jake Bishop, and J. D. Gunnele.

Sunday School attendance of 150 was reported in 1956, only a year after the assembly began. The assembly has commended workers to the Lord’s service and is active today, with recognized elders and deacons, and with five gifted brothers involved in ministry from the platform.

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The Macon Bible Chapel in the middle of the state, was formed in 1968. It was soon renamed Three Oaks Bible Chapel, with Jim and Linda Leaptrot, and Vaughn and Betty Sitepley being the principal instigators of the work. John Moore and Tom Skillen have shared leadership with Jim Leaptrot and Vaught Sitepley. About 40 adults and youngsters attend Three Oaks Bible Chapel. The assembly has commended Jim Leaptrot to a preaching and pastoral ministry.

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Community Bible Chapel in Atlanta began in January 1971, the fruit of many years of prayer on the part of T. Michael Flowers and Mrs. Barbara Simon of Atlanta. Mr. and Mrs. John W. Moore, Jr., formerly of Detroit, had moved to Atlanta and labored abundantly for the Lord among the black population. About 30 to 35 people were in the assembly in 1971, which then met in the Joseph B. Whitehead Branch YMCA of Atlanta for morning services on the Lord’s day.

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The North Atlanta Gospel Chapel at 1475 Druid Hills Road in Atlanta, had come into being by the late 1940s. By 1985, it had changed its name to North Atlanta Bible Chapel. In the summer of 1992, several families attending the North Atlanta Bible Chapel felt a need to start a new assembly in Gwinnett County. With the blessings of the elders at North Atlanta, 12 families began meeting for prayer and Bible study about this effort. In 1993 a transition leadership team was recognized, and in September 1994, the group met for the first time as an assembly in a rented day care facility on Wynne Russell Drive.

Attendance grew steadily from the first Sunday’s attendance figure of 51. In 1995, the assembly moved into a larger day-care facility on Indian Trail Road. Later that year, property was purchased, and the first meeting in the Gwinnett Bible Chapel occurred at the end of 1996. George Groezinger, Charles Brown, and John Stewart are the elders. About 110 attend the assembly today.

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In the late 1940s, Charles and Betty Fouche, who had been in fellowship at Bethany Chapel in Augusta, moved to Atlanta. For a while they fellowshipped at the North Atlanta Gospel Chapel. Then Charles Fouche and others started Northwoods Chapel in Doraville, a suburb of Atlanta. This meeting grew rapidly, and, in a few years, they were able to construct a chapel. This meeting continued into the 1990s.

Sources

• Questionnaire Responses
• Washington Chapel, anonymous, 1990s
• Gwinnett Bible Chapel Chronology, anonymous, 1998
• Bethany Chapel Augusta, Georgia, The First Few Years and Other Important Information, by Gene Hollingsworth, 1996
• Lester Wilson and Albany Gospel Chapel, by Harold P. Henriksin, February 1998
• Letters of Interest, November 1949, p. 3; January 1956, p. 19; November 1956, p. 7; June 1959, p. 11; February 1968, p. 4; April 1971, p. 16; October 1976, p. 14; April 1985, p. 16; January 1985, p. 11