A Heritage for generations to come
FRANKLIN, Tenn. — In its next two decades, the Heritage…
Celebrating an Alabama church’s 200-year legacy
Generations of Christians carry on the legacy of a church with deep Restoration roots.
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MOULTON, ALA. — Two hundred years ago, evangelist Benjamin F. Hall planted a congregation of the Lord’s church in this rural Alabama town.
Maybe.
A historical marker explains Moulton’s beginnings.
The church’s historical marker credits the Kentucky minister, heavily influenced by Restoration Movement leader Barton W. Stone, with establishing the Moulton Church of Christ in 1826.
According to Hall’s autobiography, that was the same year Tolbert Fanning responded to one of Hall’s gospel invitations at Cypress Creek, about 40 miles northwest of Moulton. Fanning became an extremely influential preacher among Churches of Christ and co-founder of the Gospel Advocate.
Related: A Heritage for generations to come
Another source, the Encyclopedia of Alabama, has Fanning himself playing a key role in establishing the congregation in 1830.
And in his Christian Review, Fanning reported that the Moulton church was planted in 1843, after his debate with a Presbyterian minister at the Moulton courthouse, which led to 22 baptisms.
Michael Strickland teaches the church’s history during its Bible class hour.
“I rejoice in such triumphs no little myself; but oh Lord, to Thee, and thy precious word, I am indebted for all that I have witnessed in Moulton,” the evangelist wrote of the church, which was often referred to as a Christian Church in its early history. “The brethren are strong in numbers, talent and influence, and I pray God they may be kept humble.”
Church records also strongly associate Crockett McDonald with the beginnings of the congregation and the purchase of its first dedicated meetinghouse in 1845. McDonald was another Kentucky native who moved to Moulton in 1826 and became justice of the peace, postmaster, treasurer of the county, mayor and preacher — many of those roles simultaneously.
A sign welcomes visitors to Moulton, Ala.
“You know, determining exactly when something starts when nobody’s too worried about documenting exactly how it started is very difficult,” said Michael Strickland, a deacon of the North Boulevard Church of Christ in Murfreesboro, Tenn. He was baptized at the Moulton church as a teen and preached there in the early 2000s.
Whatever its exact origins, the church recently celebrated two centuries of rich history. Strickland, a theology professor at Amridge University, an online school associated with Churches of Christ, returned to Moulton to explain some of the congregation’s chronology and preach a sermon on the importance of remembrance and God’s enduring love.
Children at the Moulton church enter the auditorium after Bible class. Beside the doorway is a timeline of the church’s history.
“Our mission, brothers and sisters, is to show the love of God to everyone,” Strickland told his hometown congregation, with 210 in attendance for the bicentennial. “I want to suggest that God has been showing his love in this congregation for 200 years. And I pray he gives us 200 years more.
“The way he’ll do that is by using his love through us, demonstrating to this community and this world.”
‘This is still home’
Among the visitors that Sunday was Cindy Henry, 58, who grew up a third-generation member of the Moulton church. Her grandfather, John Hardin, and father, Clinton Hardin, were both longtime elders. John Hardin was baptized in Moulton in 1933, at a gospel meeting with J.E. Thornberry.
Her son, Mitchell Henry, is a deacon of the church who, with his wife, Rebecca, and son, Clint, extends that heritage to five generations. They carry on the legacy of the Hardin family cattle farm to as many generations, too.
Cindy Henry, in the white-and-blue dress, sings hymns next to her son, Mitchell, and grandson, Clint.
“Just so many wonderful, wonderful people here. I have all good memories of going to church here,” said Cindy Henry, who attended the celebration with her husband, Faulkner University President Mitch Henry.
Cindy Henry recalled a peak church membership of about 250 in her childhood, which had grown from 100 in the 1930s.
On a 1993 mission trip to Donetsk, Ukraine, Brian Hardin, far right, and Michael Strickland and other companions (including Hoyt Nelson) eat with their Ukrainian hosts.
“It was a very strong, very active church all my growing up,” she told The Christian Chronicle. “It’s got some … really good foundation and roots.”
One of Henry’s brothers, Brian, was good friends with Strickland. They went on a mission trip to Ukraine together in 1993.
“I remember them and all their shenanigans,” she said. “They were always having a good time and laughing and cutting up. But they always were reaching out to others. That’s what I remember the most is lots of just reaching out to everyone.
“This is still home in a lot of ways. There’s new faces, but there’s still people that helped raise me.”
“This is still home in a lot of ways,” added Henry, who now lives on a farm in Hope Hull, Ala., just outside Montgomery. “There’s new faces, but there’s still people that helped raise me.”
For her father, an 88-year-old retired farmer, “It’s been my life.”
Besides six years away in the Army and college, he’s a lifelong Moulton resident and church member.
Clint Hardin and his wife, Barbara, worship at Moulton.
“I’ve been here when there was problems and there was disasters,” Hardin said. “I’ve seen some hard times.” But “it’s going good right now. You feel good about the church right now.
“We’ve had good preachers, and we’ve had good leadership. Really good leadership carried us through the problems I guess that all churches have.”
The Moulton church house has added a new auditorium and fellowship hall since it was first built in 1950.
The Moulton church hired its first full-time preacher in 1937, a year before Hardin was born. He’s seen at least 16 preachers fill the pulpit in all, including the current minister, Brad McNutt, who came to the church in 2020.
Hardin grew up in Moulton’s 1925-construction church house with four classrooms and a 1,500-square-foot auditorium. In 1950, when Hardin was nearly a teen, the church demolished that structure and built its fourth dedicated meetinghouse, twice the size. It’s since added another auditorium and fellowship hall.
The Moulton Church of Christ building as it was constructed in 1950.
But the retired elder most fondly remembers the people — not the buildings: godly Sunday school teachers and parents who passed on their dedication to the word of God.
“Those things really stick with me,” he said.
“It’s always a joy to be here at church. We’ve got so many friends and close friends and everything’s just ideal for me,” Hardin added with a chuckle.
A new revival
Deep connections run throughout the Moulton congregation.
Ashley Nelson grew up in the Salem Church of Christ in Zip City, Ala., just north of Florence. The 34-year-old became a member of the Moulton church a decade ago, after she started dating her now-husband, Ross Nelson, 40.
Ashley Nelson with her husband, Ross, and daughters, Kendall and Eva.
His grandfather, Hoyt Nelson, preached for Moulton from the late 1970s to early 1990s and also helped start Camp Wiregrass in southeast Alabama, where the couple first met.
But much of the history Strickland shared was new to Ashley Nelson.
“It was neat — very eye opening to the fact that for a while we didn’t worship every Sunday,” she said, referring to the time after Crockett McDonald’s death in 1857 when “the disciples had not met except to hear preaching,” according to the Gospel Advocate.
Fanning wrote in that report that he “preached four times, immersed six, and extracted a promise from the brethren to meet on the next Lord’s day to worship the Lord. … There are no people on earth for whose religious prosperity we feel deeper interest.”
A Feb. 15, 1883, edition of The Gospel Advocate notes that the cause at Moulton “is not so prosperous as it once was.”
But in 1887, a sister from the Moulton church wrote to the Advocate, “The church here is prospering, have over a hundred members, meeting and breaking bread every Lord’s day.” She noted that T.B. Larimore, another influential minister who founded the Mars Hill Academy, had just preached a meeting that added 11 souls to the church.
Nearly 140 years later, after more ups and downs, Nelson said Moulton has experienced another renewal of sorts — and she’s optimistic about the congregation’s future.
Two hundred ten church members and visitors attend Moulton’s bicentennial worship.
“We have so many young kids now,” said Nelson, who has two daughters, Kendall, 7, and Eva, 3. “We have a big, strong little kids group. We call them the Sun Shiners. And so, anytime we have an event, we usually have about 20 to 30 kids at those events.
“So I feel like that shows that the church is going in the right direction.”
CALVIN COCKRELL is Managing Editor for The Christian Chronicle and serves as the young adult minister for the North Tuscaloosa Church of Christ in Alabama. Reach him at [email protected].
