Church to celebrate mileston

The Grovetown United Methodist Church, along with the city of Grovetown, is celebrating a milestone anniversary this year.

The church has planned some church history events this weekend to celebrate its 125th anniversary.

"On Saturday, we're just really having a family time from 4 to 6 p.m.," said the Rev. Brandon Fulmer, the church's pastor of nearly three years.

Fulmer said church members and families will gather in the large yard next to the sanctuary Saturday for an informal cookout, games and other activities followed by a presentation of the church's history at 6:30 p.m.

"Basically, it will be the ministers we've had and some of the highlights of their ministries," said Don Thornhill, a church member since 1967 who is helping organize the historical presentation.

The events are open to anyone with a connection to the church, "or anybody who just wants to come and celebrate with us," Fulmer said.

The church was founded in its location at 206 E. Robinson Ave. in 1881 with the Rev. Eaton Bonner as its first pastor of what was then called the Grovetown Mission. The current church building was constructed in the 1920s and the interior was renovated after a 1968 fire, Thornhill said.

"One of the interesting points of history has to do with the really famous bell that we have in the Grovetown Museum. It came out of the Grovetown School," Thornhill said. "The bell originally came from our church and went to the school. It seems that when we built our church or there was some work done, the pastor of the church at the time was also the principal of the school. And it seems when they built the old school, he took the bell from our church and put it in the school."

The church has grown to nearly 130 members with an average of 60 to 70 in attendance each Sunday, Fulmer said.

"We're still a small church," Thornhill said. "But we do a lot of things in the community."

The celebration will continue Sunday morning with a sermon from a former pastor, the Rev. Chuck Hodges, of the Peachtree City United Methodist Church near Atlanta. The 11 a.m. service will be followed by a covered-dish dinner.

For more information on the events or to R.S.V.P., contact Fulmer a (706) 863-1859 or brando912@hotmail.com; or Sharon Totten at (706) 860-1701 or tottenj@bellsouth.net.