The Church in the Wildwood
Maybe you remember a hymn in the songbook in the back of the pew in front of you entitled “Church in the Wildwood.” If you do recall it, this means right at this very moment your brain is streaming, “oh-oh, come…come…come…come…” Yes, that’s the song! I remember thinking there is absolutely nothing biblical about this hymn. It’s about going down to a little brown church in the dale. Haven’t we preached over and over again that the church is the people and not a place? And aren’t we supposed to keep ourselves from being tied to a building?
That being said, this article is actually a tribute to the churches out there in the wildwood. You see, I cut my preaching teeth on those churches. If it weren’t for the churches in the wildwood, then I would never have received the encouragement I needed to become a minister of the gospel of Christ.
My grandfather primarily taught in smaller churches, and I spent a good portion of my growing up and early preaching years in congregations of less than 50 members. Our singing was aesthetically marginal at best. There were no “programs.” We were just a group of Christians who were close and who loved each other and who were so happy to have a place to call home. The older people I have been associated with in smaller congregations were my real-life Hebrews 11 hall of faith heroes. Almost everything I ever needed to know or learn about ministry I gained in my time among the churches in the wildwood.
I want to thank the Hickory Plains church in west Tennessee (which closed a few years ago) for the 3 months they let me come and fill their pulpit. It was an hour drive each way, and the pre-worship ceremony included the killing of as many wasps as possible before services began. This building didn’t even have a bathroom, just an old outhouse in the back that nobody dared to use! But they would take me home and feed me after preaching with vegetables fresh from their garden. And they thought that my sermons were wonderful when I was 23 years old, when looking back I can assure they were hardly bearable!
I want to thank the Christian Chapel church near Humboldt, Tennessee. They let me be their preacher during the first year of my marriage. We ate every Sunday night at the Majestic Steakhouse in Trenton, Tennessee, where the speed limit is always 31 mph within the city limits. Not far from a place called, “Frog Jump,” this church let me serve for the first time under elders and deacons. They were willing for me to teach an entire year on Wednesday night on the book of Job while I was doing my internship in that book. Leaving that church and moving to Kentucky was like experiencing a death in my family. Just a few weeks ago, one their members, Stan Penny, sent me a CD of all the memories of that blessed church.
I want to thank the New Providence church in Hazel, Kentucky. When I was 25 they hired me as their full-time preacher and they provided a home for me and my wife of one year. We lived next to the building. Our mailbox and phone was the church’s mailbox and phone on 60 Christian Lane. I might argue that the golden years of my ministry were the 4 years I spent in Calloway County. I was just a foolish young evangelist living out his dream. I had an aspiration to convert the whole world starting from that location. No group of people was ever so generous, so loving and so accepting of a young preacher and his immaturity as they were.
Finally, I want to thank the Cubb Creek church near Gainesboro, TN. It was just this past Sunday that I received a call from Hubert Jones asking if my son Luke wanted to come and preach on a Sunday evening. If you go to the end of the earth and take a left, you will come upon Cubb Creek. My son said “yes” to the invitation (though he had no sermon and had to write it that afternoon) and we went and I listened to, so far, what I would call in life my favorite sermon. I got to see another generation begin preaching the gospel of Christ. It was kind of one of those moments you remind yourself you are trying to stay alive to witness. The ladies cooked a meal and we stayed and had fellowship. It was truly one of the greatest nights of my life.
The church in the wildwood has a lot to offer. I think most of all they offer “encouragement.” If there was a name for the wildwood churches it would be Barnabas. And I would venture to say that the majority of the men who preach today are preaching because of all of those churches in the wildwood who believed in them when they could barely speak in public.
“No place is so dear to my childhood, as the little brown church in the dale…”
“And all that believed were together, and had all things common.” – Acts 2:44
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AUTHOR: Jeremiah Tatum
