GREENWOOD, TEXAS — After 128 years of trustworthy service to the Lord, the top got here all of the sudden for the Greenwood Church of Christ.
I’d worship on the little nation church a couple of occasions a yr, arriving a half hour or so early with my dad and mom, Bob and Judy Ross.
Mother would fill the communion trays and set out home made cookies or brownies, whereas Dad, the preacher, reviewed his Bible class lesson and sermon notes.
The Greenwood Church of Christ’s roots in rural North Texas stretched again to 1896.
Wayne East, elder and songleader, would present up a couple of minutes later together with his spouse, Theresa. They’d smile and greet me, and Wayne would hand me a duplicate of the single-page church bulletin he’d edited and printed out.
Despite the fact that I lived 160 miles away and visited sometimes, I knew I’d discover my spouse, Tamie, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and different autoimmune ailments, on the prayer listing.
Associated: What it means to stay in ache
I’d shake palms with Invoice Woolaver, the opposite elder and Theresa East’s father. I’d speak about baseball with deacon Lonny Henry, a truck driver and farmer, and luxuriate in listening to his spouse, Pleasure, focus on her nursing work.
In its heyday, this North Texas neighborhood settled by Nineteenth-century pioneers boasted two saloons, 4 grocery shops, a resort, a financial institution, a barbershop, a blacksmith store and a cotton gin.
Greater than a century later, somewhat nation retailer serves the few remaining residents of the unincorporated ranching neighborhood, 55 miles north of Fort Value.
Up the road from the shop and the volunteer fireplace station subsequent door, the Greenwood church gathered every Sunday — with roots relationship all the best way again to 1896.
A 1906 twister destroyed the unique church constructing, in line with the congregation’s written historical past. The white wood construction constructed to interchange it served because the church’s assembly place for almost a century.
A classroom constructing was constructed in 1987, adopted by a brand new auditorium in 2003. After the brand new auditorium opened, the outdated church facility was offered and brought aside to be moved to a brand new location.
The Greenwood church’s classroom constructing, at left, was constructed in 1987. The brand new auditorium, at proper, opened in 2003.
For the previous few a long time, God blessed my household — and me — by way of the Greenwood believers, who have been tiny in quantity however big in coronary heart.
When my three kids, now adults, have been youthful, the little congregation continuously donated cash to assist them go on mission journeys. When my oldest youngster, Brady, was an adolescent, the Greenwood elders gave him his first alternative to evangelise. And so they stored inviting him again.
Within the mid-Fifties, an entertainer named Pat Boone moved to the Lone Star State to pursue music research on the College of North Texas. Whereas in Texas, Boone delivered sermons at varied Church buildings of Christ. Greenwood was certainly one of them.
Through the years, quite a lot of ministers honed their preaching abilities at Greenwood — from Jimmy Waggoner, now an elder of the Sanger Church of Christ in North Texas; to Clyde Slimp, now a regional director for Texas-based Japanese European Mission; to a number of college students from the Brown Path College of Preaching in Bedford, Texas.
Slimp recollects going together with his youth group from the Decatur Church of Christ — about 15 miles west of Greenwood — to steer worship on the Greenwood church in 1987.
“It’s humorous now,” Slimp advised me in 2013, “however I feel I vaguely bear in mind it being talked up as a means for us to go encourage them since they have been a small nation church. The truth was that by giving us an opportunity to develop and step up, we have been those who received the most important dose of encouragement.”
An outdated signal exterior the Greenwood Church of Christ in rural North Texas is pictured in 2016.
A brand new signal exterior the Greenwood Church of Christ shows a message of hope on Easter Sunday 2019.
Sermons and naps
My father, a 1976 graduate of the now-defunct White’s Ferry Street College of Preaching in West Monroe, La., served as Greenwood’s minister for nearly 23 years.
When he began in 2002, he and Mother have been nonetheless working as houseparents at Christ’s Haven for Kids in Keller, Texas.
Dad would make the hour-long drive to Greenwood by himself, whereas Mother took a van full of women to the Keller Church of Christ, the place the teenagers could possibly be concerned within the youth group.
Dad preached within the morning and napped on a church pew within the afternoon earlier than sharing one other lesson on the night service, which was later discontinued. When my dad and mom retired in 2007 after 25 years with Christ’s Haven, Mother started accompanying Dad to Greenwood.
In Dad’s early years at Greenwood, Sunday attendance averaged about 25.
That quantity swelled to 40 one Sunday in 2006 when the Sojourners — retired Christians who personal leisure automobiles and journey the nation to assist smaller congregations develop spiritually and bodily — have been on the town.
Bob and Judy Ross on the Greenwood Church of Christ in 2023.
However total attendance stored declining as younger dad and mom sought alternatives for his or her kids at bigger congregations, and older members — together with Willie C. Cole, one of many elders when Dad arrived — handed away.
One other elder, Jerry Myers, and his spouse, Nancy — who have been beloved leaders and mentors at Greenwood for a very long time — moved to a special congregation a couple of years in the past.
Nonetheless, the tight-knit group that remained persevered, having fun with a 3rd Sunday potluck meal each month.
“We stored making an attempt,” as my mom put it.
Greenwood Church of Christ members and associates collect for a 2021 fellowship meal on the house of Bob and Judy Ross. Pictured, from left, are Lonny Henry, Paul Wagner, Wayne East, Pleasure Henry, Judy Ross, Bob Ross, Theresa East, Invoice Woolaver, Joann Maxwell and Virginia McGaughey.
Too many funerals
I final visited Greenwood in June 2024.
“Individuals don’t care how a lot you understand till they understand how a lot you care,” Dad emphasised in his sermon that Lord’s Day.
I nodded and jotted down that assertion — a variation of 1 usually attributed to President Theodore Roosevelt.
Bobby Ross Jr., left, together with his siblings, Christy Fichter and Scott Ross, on the Greenwood Church of Christ in 2023.
Scott Ross fills in for his father, preacher Bob Ross, on the Greenwood Church of Christ on a Sunday in 2023.
I knew the little nation church — with simply seven remaining members — was struggling to outlive.
I didn’t understand my go to final summer time would mark my closing time to worship at Greenwood.
Dad, who will flip 80 this spring, had preached too many funerals.
The newest one got here in October 2023 when Paul Wagner, who was identified for sharing Jesus as a longtime greeter at Whataburger and later Taco Bell in Decatur, died at 78.
Wagner’s passing left the congregation with one fewer man to hope, lead singing and assist with the Lord’s Supper.
Among the different members — together with Dad and Wayne East — confronted critical well being challenges.
Even strolling to the pulpit usually left Dad, who has battled lung issues alongside together with his diabetes, out of breath. East, in the meantime, handled ataxia, a degenerative illness of the central nervous system.
Associated: Particular challenge: The place have all of the church buildings gone?
“For those who search for ataxia, it says lack of steadiness and coordination,” East defined to me. “It’s this neurological illness that I’ve had for 25 or 30 years, however simply within the final 5 or 6 years, it’s hit me the place I can’t do anything.”
Songleading turned increasingly of a problem.
However East was fast so as to add, “I’m blessed greater than lots of people as a result of I can nonetheless stand up and stroll round and do issues, and for that I’m actually grateful.”
“I’m blessed greater than lots of people as a result of I can nonetheless stand up and stroll round and do issues, and for that I’m actually grateful.”
Time to say goodbye
On a Sunday late in 2024, the members talked and determined the congregation couldn’t go on.
Dad had knowledgeable the elders he might preach by way of the top of the yr. However his well being wouldn’t enable him to maintain making the 40-mile drive from his Fort Value-area house.
“I’m glad your dad wished to retire as a result of with Paul (Wagner) gone and my not having the ability to lead singing, it was excellent timing to promote the constructing,” mentioned East, who will cherish fond reminiscences equivalent to welcoming kids from the neighborhood to Trip Bible College.
I’ve confessed this beforehand, however after I first began visiting Greenwood within the early 2000s, I had a couple of misconceptions. I assumed that the small crowd of older Christians should be going by way of the motions and never making an enormous distinction in God’s kingdom.
Disgrace on me.
I couldn’t have been extra flawed.
Through the years, Greenwood’s prayer and generosity overwhelmed me.
The church supported missionaries in locations equivalent to Cambodia, India and South Africa and donated month-to-month to the Tipton Kids’s House in Oklahoma.
And with the sale of its property to a neighbor who launched a daycare in Greenwood, the congregation was in a position to ship hundreds of {dollars} to a lot of very important ministries — from EEM to the “In Search of the Lord’s Means” tv program to, sure, The Christian Chronicle. (We’re extraordinarily grateful for the help.)
I didn’t discover out concerning the closing till after the actual fact.
Dad talked about it casually in a phone dialog a couple of days after it occurred.
Associated: An everlasting distinction
I lamented the dearth of a proper goodbye, however Greenwood’s leaders noticed no want for pomp or fanfare.
That final Sunday, there was a closing partaking of the Lord’s Supper. A closing prayer. And a closing crunching of tires on the gravel car parking zone as teary-eyed members drove away.
After 128 years of trustworthy service to the Lord, the top got here all of the sudden for the Greenwood Church of Christ.
However reward God: The little nation church’s legacy will stay on.
Reward God: The little nation church’s legacy will stay on.
BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Attain him at [email protected].
