Church
BY TIMOTHY JOHNSON
Countryside Baptist celebrated its forty- first anniversary yesterday. The church started on the first Sunday of May 1985. Bill Howard was the original Pastor, and I came along ten years later.
It was a wonderful day! We had a slideshow with pictures going all the way back to the beginning, presented gifts to the congregation, and had lots of singing, along with the usual amount of preaching. After morning church, we went to a local state park for a picnic and an afternoon service at the shelter. A baptism was planned but postponed because the creek was a bit too high, and with temperatures in the thirties on Sunday morning, it was a bit nippy to get someone all wet.
The day ended with a mortgage burning and a song. It’s interesting how God brings coincidences. The gift for a fortyfirst anniversary is land, and God had our land paid off in the church’s forty-first year.
The slideshow and the testimonies at the park highlighted the lasting impact Countryside Baptist has had on people’s lives, both past and present.
During the testimonies, people spoke of their love for the church and how God had helped them, both materially and spiritually, through the people of the church.
During the slideshow, lots of memories, a few laughs, and swelling of hearts for precious times gone by. What impressed me during the slideshow was the number of people, dozens, maybe a hundred or more, who are no longer part of our little
