My mother’s from Pike County, and still attends (a different, Presbyterian) church there. Her church had a new young pastor come in a few years ago, and apparently, the congregation took exception to his preaching of tolerance towards groups like homosexuals. So they ran him off and got a new one.
And then they wonder why their congregation is shrinking every year.
A church that wants to attract new members has to widen itself and its beliefs - do the opposite for long enough, and you’ll end up with a congregation of one.
That’s why racism is different here than it is in the Deep South, IMO–there just aren’t very many black people around. In places where there are larger AA populations people have had years to get used to mixed relationships; it’s still very much a novelty for the folks in communities like this one.
Pike County is a weird place. A lot of it is small isolated communities like this one, but there is a TON of coal money in Pikeville itself. Someone once told me that Pikeville has more millionaires per square mile than any city in the country, which is probably bullshit but depending on where they draw the city limits it might not be off by much. Pikeville has a university and even a medical school, but it also has every poor rural stereotype you can imagine within a ten-minute drive.
Nope. This is a tiny church–average Sunday attendance is around 40, so attendance at a business meeting would be much less. The HL story said that more people were at the meeting than those 15, but many “didn’t want to take a stand”.
No, he’s a dude. Stacy is a fairly common name for guys around here.
Very unlikely. Baptist churches (and especially a Freewill Baptist) are democratic in organization – most all major decisions are made by vote of the whole church (more accurately, by the voting members that show up for the meeting).
The only other possibility is that it would be the deacons, but it’s unlikely that a rural county would support a church big enough to have 15 deacons. Rural areas have lots of one-room churches with a couple dozen elderly members.
This article says attendence for a Sunday mass is something like 40 people, so the full congregation is certainly larger then 9 people. There are pics of the church on some of the articles, its certainly a long way from a mega-church, but its not a one room deal either. Its not like the Westboro Baptists or something where the “congregation” is just one guys extended family.
Happy looking couple though. They probably deserve a better Church anyways.
Baptist churches typically do not have “Elders.” They tend to have “Deacons” in an somewhat analogous role to what mainline churches give “Elders.” (They may also have “Trustees” who deal with nonreligious issues e.g. building maintenance … to make it even more confusing, some mainline churches call these guys “Deacons.”)
A church with 40 people attending on Sunday is not going to have 15 Deacons or Elders or any kind of leadership. Half of that 40 are likely kids and old ladies.
