Standing in the Place of Heroes
Today I stood in the place where a many of great men have stood. I stood in a place of pioneers. I stood in a building where, prior to the Civil War, slaves and masters sat together in one house. I walked through a cemetery where soldiers were buried. Possibly some who were killed in the Civil War. Some graves, unmarked even now, are believed to hold the remains of Union soldiers killed far away from home. Some soldiers buried there were not physical soldiers but great armor bearers of the King of kings. They had preached faithfully the gospel that changed lives. One marker was formed into the shape of a pulpit with an open Bible atop.
Old Pennsylvania Meethouse, located just south of McMinnville, Tennessee dates its history back to 1805 when the Price family and others came from North Carolina and united the people of the area on the idea of using the Bible as their only guide. This movement was separate from the Campbell/Stone movement that happened in Kentucky but was a similar intention: use the Scripture to determine the practices of Christianity rather than following man made practices. Some of the first families that settled there baptized their family, including their slaves that desired to live for Christ, and they all worshipped together in the same building — a practice that would have been very unusual in that day.
Over the course of the next two hundred years it would serve as a meeting place for many people and the pulpit, which I was able to stand in, would hold the Bible’s of men like David Lipscomb, whom the University in Nashville is named for, and one of the most famous preachers of the 20th century Marshall Keeble. Today, it has been restored but no one currently worships in the building, yet the county itself has over 40 congregations of the churches of Christ and many can draw a direct connection to this congregation. They still return there for special youth days, singings, and a few other events a year.
Places like Old Pennsylvania Meetinghouse, and my home town’s own Old Mars Hill church building (where we were blessed to worship the morning of Jackson’s graduation) remind me of the sacrifice and labor for the Gospel that so many before us have endured. They didn’t worship in comfortable pews with heated and cooled buildings. They didn’t drive to worship in their air conditioned cars. They walked in the heat and cold. They worshipped in the heat and cold. Then they walked home in the heat and cold. They endured difficult times physically, financially, and racially. They stayed faithful in good times and bad. And even then it was unpopular to do so they called people to live out their lives, their faith, and their worship under the direction of Scripture and not some man made religion.
As I considered what it would have been like for them I thought about what they would think of today. What would they say of us? And more importantly, what will the generations that come after us think? Will they stand in our pulpits and be inspired. Not just preachers and teachers, but every member. Will every member be inspired by the way you lived out your faith when the stories are told many years from now? Have we, as a church, successfully passed the torch to the generation that is following behind us?
Ben