Kentucky history

Kentucky

In about 1938, Karl Pfaff began meetings for Breaking of Bread in his home in Louisville. Several families joined with the Pfaffs at that time. Tent campaigns by Mr. Pfaff through several summers brought some response. The Louisville Assembly met in a rented building from 1947 to 1950, at which point the Christians bought a small building at 515 Montana Avenue and named it Bethany Chapel.

The Pfaffs moved to Colorado in 1950. Christians moving to Louisville for work, and Christian soldiers stationed at Fort Knox, swelled the ranks temporarily, and a young couple concerned about the mission fields, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Spacek, came for two years and developed a sizable children’s work in a large housing project. W.W. Elder was one of the leaders in that period.

By 1957, Bethany Chapel, the only assembly in Kentucky then, had declined to seven believers and eventually disbanded.

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An effort at about that time to establish an assembly testimony in the vicinity of Raceland on the eastern edge of the state did not progress beyond Bible studies in a home and in the local YMCA. In the 1970s, a small assembly was meeting in the home of R.J. Reetzke in Louisville and existed until the mid-1980s.

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Harold and Vena Preston, Kentucky natives, were serving as missionaries in the Philippines and Borneo when they learned of the brethren assemblies. When they returned to the States in 1966, they fellowshipped and worked with assemblies in south Texas, but had a continuing burden for an assembly testimony in central Kentucky. In 1981, they learned of three families interested in starting an assembly in Lexington, two of them from assembly backgrounds and the other from a nondenominational church.

The Manvel Gospel Chapel in Manvel, TX commended the Prestons to devote full-time to the work in Lexington. Thus, the South Lexington Bible Fellowship began in 1982. The John Schmidt family and the John Frasher family, with the Prestons and a few others began Breaking Bread in the Preston home at 147 Tartan Drive in September 1982 on a regular basis. In 1991, the Christians moved to an office building at 160 E. Reynolds Road, their present address. The South Lexington Bible Fellowship jointly with the Manvel Gospel Chapel commended the Prestons to the work in the Philippines in 1995-96. Gifted young men for teaching and preaching have developed at the South Lexington Assembly.

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The Pilgrim Bible Assembly in Lexington began in the spring of 1995, the result of convictions by three families of assembly background those of Paul Sloan, David Sloan, and Jerry Sweers to meet in the manner of a New Testament church. Meeting first in the home of Paul Sloan, the group moved after a year to a 1000 square foot space on Waller Avenue, and in another year to a rented 4500 square foot building at 350 Elaine Drive. The new assembly supports missionaries, has an active youth program, and has a ministry to University of Kentucky international students. About 70 adults and youngsters attend on a typical Sunday.

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The Mount Washington Bible Chapel, in the town of Mount Washington near Louisville, is the most recent in the state, and has an interesting beginning. James B. Sparks left an Independent Baptist church in about 1995 to find a New Testament way of meeting. He researched Scripture, then wrote a book about his findings on church governance, and finally discovered the brethren. The assembly met in the Sparks home in 1997. Harold Preston from the South Lexington Bible Fellowship gives assistance.

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The assembly in Owensboro, a city on the Ohio River, began in the early 1980s. Called Trinity Bible Church, it met first in the Owensboro Junior High School, and continues.

Sources

• Questionnaire Responses
• Letters of Interest, April 1957, p. 3
• Uplook, April 1996, p. 9