“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever.” In 1874, a tiny band of ex-slaves peered into the woods across the road from the site of the present church, (located at 1252 Beaverdam Church Road, Enoree, SC). They were seekers after a physical place for the replenishment of their souls. The crude structure which they built, little more than a lean-to, intended to shield them from the elements, was in fact, a magnificent symbol of the tenacity, the resiliency, and the spiritual courage which characterized our forebearers. Scarcely a decade out of slavery, this group comprehended that “the church,” in an important sense, constitutes the people, that the church is the spiritual face of the black community. Surely, they understood that what they did, and why they did what they did that day, was in fact, a revolutionary application of Christian love for us who came after them. They created a “Church” from little more than dry sprigs, from brush leavings; perhaps even the carrion crow mocked their efforts that day. But that thing, that lean-to, which they fashioned with their own newly-freed and calloused hands, was no less beautiful, no less blessed, than this building in which we worship weekly.

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