(From History of Reynolds, Georgia ...compiled by Reynolds Woman's Club)
In 1870, when the Reynolds Methodist Church was first organized, Reynolds was a very small village. Methodists were not numerous enough to support a full-time pastor, so once a month a minister from Fort Valley would ride the train to Reynolds and conduct services in a little schoolhouse on the northwest corner of Winston and Haynes streets. The first church building was built on the northwest corner of Marion and Collins streets. The Baptist Sunday School met in it in the morning and the Methodist in the afternoon. The whole community attended both sessions.
The Methodists built a separate building in 1891, on the northeast corner of the block which was donated to the town by Mr. H. H. Long for use by the churches. The present Methodist building is on the same corner. After the Methodists had a building of their own, the other building was moved across the street and converted into a dwelling. The new church was a one-room frame building. Its cornerstone - now built into the wall of the vestibule of the present building - contains the following information:
M. E. Church, South
R.C. Paris
J. A. Adams G. T. Ruffin
Trustees
M. B. Ferrell
Pastor
Behold! I lay in Zion a
chief corner stone. I Peter 2:6
A. D. 1891
A second cornerstone, also in the vestibule of the present building, adds the following:
M. E. Church, South
Instituted 1870
Founded May 20, 1891
W. A. Davis, Right Worshipful Deputy Grand Master
In 1920, the Methodist congregation had grown to such an extent that a new building was needed. Moving the wooden building to one side so that it could still be used, the congregation set to work to build a brick building on the same site as the first building bearing the name Methodist. When the new structure was completed in 1923, the old building was torn down and hauled away. The building committee for the present building was composed of F.A. Ricks, J.A. Matthews, and E.E. Barrow. The Reverend J.G. Christian was pastor from the beginning to the completion of the building program.
Formal dedication - meaning in the Methodist tradition that all indebtedness against the building has been removed - did not come for over a dozen years, several of which were Depression years. ON June 14, 1936, Bishop W.N. Ainsworth, presiding bishop of the Atlanta Area of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, came to Reynolds to conduct the formal Service of Dedication. The program for the day indicates that before Bishop Ainsworth preached the morning sermon, Mr. John Pendergrast sang a solo. The invitation which the congregation sent to members and friends indicates that the service began at eleven o clock, Central Standard Time, and that the invitation committee consisted of Rev. J.N. Shell, pastor, and H.K. Sealy, Mrs. J.G. Hicks, Mrs. A.G. Hicks, and Mrs. F.A. Ricks.
The Reynolds Methodist Church was served by ministers from Fort Valley or Butler from the time of organization until 1893, when the Reverend Jason Shirah was appointed to the Reynolds Circuit. Since that time, the Reynolds pastor has served other Methodist churches in the area, including Garden Valley, Potterville and Crowell. Of these three, only the Crowell church is still in existence. It is the oldest Methodist church in the county - and probably in this section of Georgia which lies west of the Flint River. Founded in 1829, it was first served by Brother Langsdale, a missionary to the Indians who was visiting the Indian Agency when John Crowell was the third agent for Indian affairs.
Toward the end of the third year of his pastorate at Reynolds, Rev. H.W. Joiner wrote in his pastor s report to the August 2, 1915 session of the Quarterly Conference: We are planning for a meeting to begin the third Sunday in this month, out of which we expect great things. On October 15th of the same year, he reported to the Fourth Quarterly Conference: We have enjoyed a great meeting in our community. Hundreds of people came together twice and three times a day for two weeks. More enthusiastic services I have never attended. The purse gospel in sermon and song was listened to by the great crowds. Twenty-four were received into the Methodist Church on profession of faith. . .
The meeting to which Brother Joiner referred was the famous protracted meeting held in a tent pitched on the east side of the old church building. The preacher was twenty-seven year old Arthur Moore of Blackshear, Georgia, Conference Evangelist of the South Georgia Conference; the singer was Charlie D. Tillman of Atlanta, who not only sang but wrote songs and music and his daughter, Jewel Tillman, was the pianist. People traveled to Reynolds from as far away as Savannah (including a Miss Williams whose family still operates one of the finest seafood restaurants on the Atlantic Coast). Many of the out-of-towners stayed at the Big Oak Hotel, the second and third stories of the building now housing the Georgia Power office.
At the time of that protracted meeting, Arthur Moore was a successful young evangelist in the sixth year of his ministry. The son of a section foreman on the Atlantic Coastline Railroad (whose sections once extended from Hell to Glory - two stations on the line) and himself a railroad man from his youth until his conversion at the age of twenty-one, Arthur Moore, after those early years of intensive evangelism, went on to become pastor of large Methodist churches and to become a Methodist Bishop whose responsibilities reached to every quarter of the globe. As he neared the end of a long and fruitful ministry, he came back to Reynolds for the church s Centennial celebration in 1970. Greeting him were only a very few - no more than half-a-dozen - of the twenty-four who had professed faith in Christ under the influence of his preaching fifty-five years earlier. But the impact that Arthur James Moore had on the church and the town, both as a young evangelist and as a retired bishop, will long be counted among the greatest experiences ever to be enjoyed by the community.
Contributed by Lisa Windham
Centennial Speech by Mr. Roy Jones delivered on October 18, 1970.
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