April 5, 1999
By United Methodist News Service
Contact: Linda Bloom· (212) 870-3803· New York
NOTE: This story is the second of two parts.
It is accompanied by More Than 1,500 Help Rebuild Fire-damaged Sanctuaries
Five years ago on Palm Sunday, Red Oak United Methodist Church in Stockbridge, Ga., was deliberately set on fire.
With the help of denominational connections, the congregation has nearly made a full recovery from that devastating event. Immediately after the fire, members of First United Methodist Church in nearby Jonesboro offered the use of their fellowship hall for worship.
"It's just like we were at home," said the Rev. John Pace, Red Oak's pastor. "We never missed a beat."
Red Oak had an ample insurance policy but still needed more to rebuild the sanctuary and fellowship hall. Through loans and various means of fund-raising, such as selling barbecue, the 340-member congregation came up with additional money. Now, only the interior of the fellowship hall must be completed.
"We have built and paid as we have gone along," Pace explained. "When we finish this building, we won't owe a penny on it."
Pace recently received a $30,000 grant through the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, which he estimates will cover about half the cost.
But while Red Oak's story has a happy ending, it did lose a few members along the way.
"One of the problems a preacher has when a church burns is keeping people together," Pace said. He was lucky "the Lord gave me the wisdom" to be able to preserve most of the congregation, he said.
Since its establishment in October 1997, the National Coalition for Burned Churches and Community Empowerment has supported pastors such as Pace and their congregations. The organization's board of directors and advisory council consists of pastors whose own churches have burned.
Its executive director, the Rev. Terrance Mackey, an African Methodist Episcopal minister, said the United Methodist Church "has done a remarkable job" providing resources and assistance for rebuilding. When Methodists make commitments to the individual churches affected by arson, they keep those commitments, he said.
United Methodists also have supported two youth retreats held by the coalition in the past, he said. A larger retreat, drawing 2,000 youth for three and a half days, is being planned for August 2000.
The coalition aims to get at least 80 percent of the burned churches reconstructed in the next few years. While rebuilding is an important focus, the organization also wants to place the issue back on the national agenda. Coalition representatives plan to meet with Congressional members, Attorney General Janet Reno, and members of the Clinton Administration in June to air their concerns.
One concern is pinpointing why arsonists continue to torch churches that vary in their racial makeup. Pace sat through the trial where two young men were convicted of setting his church and several other churches, housing both predominantly black and predominantly white congregations, on fire.
He said the two men, who were volunteer firefighters themselves, gave no particular reason for their acts and never expressed remorse, "not even in the courtroom."
Mackey has heard a Ku Klux Klan leader predict the advent of a "race war" in 2000 and state that if Klan members have to burn down white churches as well as black ones to incite such a conflict, they will. "Their mindset is to the point where they think they can cause this to happen," Mackey said.
In his opinion, though, the church burnings have had an opposite effect, bringing together white and black congregations that previously had little contact. He added that the burnings also conflict with an overall American sense of freedom of religion and so rally people against the arsonists.
For more information about the National Coalition for Burned Churches, call Mackey at (843) 853-5363 or send an e-mail to ncfbccp@aol.com.
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New York, and Washington.
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