December 9, 2024
WATKINSVILLE, Ga. — A local church is the product of many believers, past and present. It is their many voices combined over time that create a single story of God’s work. Mars Hill Baptist Church in Watkinsville, celebrating 225 years is no exception to the rule.
When the church was organized in 1799 by Revolutionary War veterans and their families, it was on the western edge of the Georgia frontier. The Cherokee Nation was less than two miles away. The law required men to carry their weapons to church because an unarmed group of people in a building would have been the ideal location for an Indian attack.
Although almost all early Georgia Baptist churches had their roots in the revivalist Separatist Baptist tradition, Mars Hill had at least one notable exception. Revolutionary War veteran William Daniel was one of the church’s early members. His mother’s family, the Ravens, had arrived in Charleston, South Carolina in the 1680s, from Kittery, Maine. They were Regular Baptist who were fleeing persecution in New England. Moving south they established the first Baptist Church of Charleston, the oldest Baptist Church in the South.
Reflecting the history of the nation, the old cemetery contains the remains of veterans from every American war from the Revolution through Vietnam. One of their members, not buried in the old churchyard, Eliel Melton, died at the battle of the Alamo. At least three buried there died from wounds suffered in the Mexican war, Civil War, and World War II.
In the days before the Civil War, Black slaves were members of the church. In some cases, their masters belonged to another church. Choice of religion was one of the few freedoms slaves had by law, along with one day of rest. Because Baptist theology emphasized the individual’s personal choice for salvation, many slaves gravitated to the Baptist faith. Several churches including nearby Chestnut Grove Baptist Church were organized by newly emancipated slaves in the years following the war.
The church has been a missionary-minded church from its earliest days. This is reflected in the fact that Edward Able Stevens was invited to speak in 1837. He was the first Baptist foreign missionary from Georgia and the American South, appointed by the Triennial Baptist Mission Board. Stephens was raising support for his pending journey to Burma where he served and would later complete Adoniram Judson’s work of translating the Bible into the Burmese language.
Noah Hill served as pastor from 1843 to 1845. He was later appointed as one of the first Home Missionaries of the newly organized SBC Home Mission Board in 1847. His field of service was the Lone Star State of Texas. He was an evangelist and church planter.
Dr. John Hillyer served the church from 1838 to 1839. He was an educator, pastor,r and church planter. He was also appointed as a missionary to Texas in 1848, only two years after the Home Mission Board was established. In Texas, he planted churches, pastored, and established a Baptist college in Gonzalez and later taught at Baylor.
Around 1840, the church ordained one of its members, F. M. Haygood, to the ministry. Haygood, who had grown up in the church, became a colporteur with the Georgia Baptist Tract and Bible Society. He was a roving missionary evangelist who preached, and distributed Bibles and tracts during the Civil War. During the war, he and his wife both wrote tracts for the soldiers published by the society. He served as a chaplain in the hospitals and traveled to Virginia to preach and distribute tracts to the soldiers in the field.
Other early notable pastors with ties to missions included Bedford Langford who supported Mercer University. P.H. Mell who was the longest-serving president of both the Southern and Georgia Baptist Conventions, H.R. Bernard who helped lay the foundation for cooperative giving and served for 18 months as the interim executive director of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board during a period of crisis between 1915 and 1916. In 1893, the Athens paper reported 36 baptisms following a revival during Bernard’s pastorate, with the expectations of “more additions” to follow.
It was also during the tenure of Bernard in 1891 that the church was willing to adopt a new unified plan of mission giving developed by their pastor. Called “The Schedule Plan,” it was later adopted by the Georgia Baptist Convention and was a forerunner of the Cooperative Program.
Three of this rural church’s pastors, John Hillyer, P.H. Mell and G.A Nunally served as college presidents. Hillyer at Gonzalez College in Texas, Mell at the University of Georgia, and Nunally at Mercer University and later LaGrange Female Theological Seminary.
Twentieth-century pastors with mission service included Kenneth Glen, a former IMB missionary, and Claude Healan, the director of missions with the Appalachee Baptist Association.
The church has a history of embracing growth, change, and challenges. That included the destruction of its old sanctuary by fire in 1995. The church had been raising funds to build a new sanctuary, when on a Wednesday night there was a discussion of whether it was time to begin the project or delay and raise more funds. At 2 a.m. the following morning God provided the answer by way of a lightning bolt that hit the old heart pine building built in 1858. By morning the old sanctuary was gone, and a new chapter had begun.
That older structure is the subject of another notable moment in the church’s history which reflects openness to change and literally a forward-looking focus. Early in the 20th century, the county decided to straighten Mars Hill Road. When they did so, the back of the building faced the new road. Not content to be satisfied with the status quo, the church decided to “turn itself around” and to put its best face forward.
Like all churches, Mars Hill has had its ups and downs. The current pastor, Rick Brittain, began serving in 2019 as interim before accepting a call to become full time in 2020. Rick, like many of those before him, has a passion for reaching the local community and the world beyond for Christ. His son and their family have served with the International Mission Board in Africa. Under Brittain’s leadership, the church has experienced a resurgence in recent years and is once again putting its best face forward to reach Watkinsville and the world for Christ.
Through the years the church has adapted to change and repeatedly demonstrated a forward-facing vision. They have faithfully shared the gospel with their local community. They have impacted the world with their support for missions from some of the earliest days of the modern mission’s era beginning in Burma. They helped pave the way for the development and adoption of the SBC unified plan for giving, the Cooperative Program. For most of its history, it was a small rural church, but never insignificant because of its willingness to share the gospel.
Obviously, there is a lesson to be learned from the 225-year-old church. All churches should put their best face forward. But the truth is a church can turn a building around, but only God can turn a church around! At Mars Hill, with a forward-thinking vision, that is exactly what is happening today.
