FALLING FAR FROM THE TREE
St. John’s United Methodist Church celebrated its 150th anniversary on Sunday with a big ceremony and lunch. While my dad is not the oldest member of the church, he is the member who has been a member the longest, and he was asked to speak about his membership. The oldest member is Eldon Ball who will turn 97 on June 19. Dad is “only” 89.
Mr. Ball has always been part of my life because I was raised in the Methodist church and he was a member, and of course he was my principal in elementary school. So I didn’t realize that he didn’t always live in Rockdale. I think he told me he came in 1961, just two years before I came into the world.
The old Methodist Church was founded in 1874 and held services above a furniture store. A building was erected and opened in 1883, and pictured here, was at the corner of Green Street and Cameron Avenue where the Rockdale Police Department is currently. The current St. John’s United Methodist Church is located at 1700 Hillcrest Drive and groundbreaking for the building started in 1960 after the church experienced a lot of growth after Alcoa came to town in the 1950s.
Back to the old church building: “It was in that same sanctuary downtown in 1957 that I introduced my beautiful bride Peggy to the congregation, “dad said in his speech. “I was 22, she was 16 days shy of 20. A Methodist herself, she moved her membership to St. John’s in 1959 when we started our careers here. A year later, 1960, this new building was dedicated, and it’s been our church home for all of our 67 married years.”
The rest of this are dad’s words: Our four children— Kathy, Kyle, Ken and Kevin, were raised in this church, involved in youth activities. They were loved and nurtured by this congregation.
And when we lost two of our grown children, Kevin in 2008 and Kathy in 2017, we were sustained by an overwhelming outpouring of love and support from this congregation and community. It brought to us an entire new perspective on God’s grace and the countless ways that grace surrounds us, in joy and sorrow.
This church has blessed us immensely. Peggy will tell you her All-Star class, which she and the late Martha Parsley started in the 1970’s for special-needs individuals, has blessed her even more than it has blessed those very special class members.
I was fortunate to serve as head usher here for 20 years, up until the 2020 pandemic shutdown that St. John’s and many other churches are still recovering from. Our Sunday worship attendance through most of those years was in the high 70s and 80s and could jump well over 100 on the occasions featuring the youth choir, VBS performers, and of course Easter and Christmas.
With God’s grace and direction, and the wonderful leadership St. John’s has right now—with Pastor Madison and our great board—we pray our church can return to those numbers. We know it will continue to serve, support, love, nurture and make disciples for another 150 years, and beyond.
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