Mt. Peria Baptist Church in Ringgold had hoped to have its sanctuary and grounds overflowing with families returning for its 102nd Homecoming Sunday. But last week's tornado collapsed the east wall of the brick church, leaving rows of pews and the pulpit visible from outside.
A much smaller service was held in the parking lot of the north Georgia church, as about 100 people gathered, some from neighboring churches, to make a joyful noise.
"I can't keep these tears in," said Elizabeth Warthan, 62, as she surveyed the pews from the parking lot. "To see this destruction and to see everybody in my community alive. I am glad I was a churchgoer, but I am sure a churchgoer now."
On the first Sunday after the deadly storms that swept the Southeast and killed 15 Georgians, local churches held services in the paths they cut. Worshipers, some standing amid rubble, thanked God for sparing them, asked for strength to shoulder the rebuilding effort and prayed for the victims -- at least 342 dead nationally.
Mt. Peria, which is near the Tennessee border, was in the corridor of Wednesday's tornado. The winds exploded the church's cinder-block community center, with its gym, kitchen and meeting room, and destroyed much of the smaller fellowship hall behind the main church.
The pastor's Bible, though, remained untouched on the pulpit.
"We had offers from churches to come under their roofs," said the Rev. Jimmy Ingram, the interim pastor. "We just wanted to bring families together here. We want to weep together and rejoice."
Outside of town, the small Cherokee Valley Baptist Church had become a relief site for the section of the county hit hardest by the storm. Two of the dead, Robert Jones, 47, and Jack Estep, 61, had prayed with the 60-member congregation, with Jones attending regularly, said Pastor Franky Ridley.
Ridley said the church decided to forgo services Sunday so it could concentrate on relief work. The church is in the area where most of the local victims lived, including the Black family, which lost four members: Chelsea Black, 16; Cody Black, 21; Pamela Black, 46; Christopher Black, 47. Other Catoosa County residents killed Wednesday were Holly Readus, 26, and Rhea McClannahan, 86.
"We're going to serve the people," Ridley said.
In Bartow County, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound … ” rolled easily off the singing tongues of the members and visitors outside the destroyed Crowe Springs Baptist Church.
Under tents set up to ward off the morning sun, Pastor Ronnie Cowart, who is also the Bartow Fire Department’s chief of training, told the crowd of more than 100 — double the normal Sunday attendance — that the heavily damaged sanctuary is not reparable.
The fiberglass steeple was found about eight miles away in a farm pond, according to member Gene Powell.
“This building is destroyed,” Cowart told his flock. “But that is just the church house. But what sits before us today is the church. It’s what feeds people and takes care of people in need.”
Through occasional tears, Cowart preached a simple message of hope and perseverance, encouraging neighbors to help neighbors, and he prayed for victims from Alabama where loss of life was heavy and for those of the recent tsunami in Japan.
Crowe Springs' gravel parking has become a center for community help and for homes and families spread for miles along the path of the Wednesday night tornado. Thirteen houses along the road ending at the church were flattened and dozens of others damaged in this rural swath of rolling hills just east of I-75 outside Cartersville.
Randy Woodall, who lives nearby, looked out at acres of flattened trees and houses and said, “It didn’t only change the landscape. It changed people’s lives. Maybe they will be changed for the better.”
In Ringgold, some Baptist and Methodist churches canceled morning services and had a joint service at Heritage High School Sunday night. Their volunteers fanned out in the community during the day.
The Ringgold United Methodist Church was serving as the staging area for the United Methodist Committee on Relief which is sending staffers and volunteers across the southeast to help with the region’s biggest natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina.
Following a brief outside service Sunday morning, the UMCOR Ringgold coordinator sent volunteers out to talk to residents to find out what assistance they needed and assess the property damages.
Other Methodist teams left to tarp more roofs and move more trees. Workers were told that playgrounds and hard-hit cemeteries also would be priorities.
“There are going to be funerals starting Tuesday for people who died,” the coordinator said.
Two volunteers, Jason Hooper, a structural engineer, and Terry Barker, an architect, were out Sunday asking to inspect damaged homes if residents were still in them.
“We’re trying to make sure nobody is living in anything they shouldn’t be,” said Barker, a Ringgold resident. “Turning people out in this community is not something you have to worry about. This is a close community.”
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