Shining the Light

No one remembers when the first Baptist meeting house was built in Crabapple, but church records tell us that the congregation moved to Ryerson Station and built South Wheeling Baptist Church in 1874. “South Wheeling” describes the big creek in the back yard where baptisms happened. Ulysses Grant was president and Ryerson Station had grown from a frontier fortification into a bustling farming village on the road between Wheeling and points east. The white wooden church with its two front doors – one for men, one for women, fit right in with the times and folks came on foot and in buggies to practice their old time religion of self determination through following the example that Christ offered. It would be some130 years before the congregation would realize that the ticket to a 21st century church with these same values lay right under their feet, in the bituminous coal seams of Appalachia.

Times were changing, attendance was declining as families moved away and the village had all but disappeared when CON- SOL Energy offered to buy the coal rights in exchange for a new church a couple of miles up the road in 2006. “Some members were a little hesitant” but finally decided it was “too good a deal to pass up,” Pastor Phil Campbell Jr. told reporter Brandon Szuminsky when “New Beginnings” at Ryerson South Wheeling Baptist Church opened its doors that September. Ryerson had been added to the original name to distinguish it from the original church, and New Beginnings was added to celebrate a hopeful future.

“The church that coal built” as Brandon headed his story, sits shiny and white on the hill above Ryerson on Roy Furman Highway and Headley Hollow Road. It has a God’s eye view of the rolling hills of Greene County and big double glass doors that all pass through to enter a new world of worship – speakers, electronics, two big screens flanking the alter spelling out the Word of God and the New Testament, accompanied by a praise team willing to rock the ages with Pastor Phil on bass guitar.

I stopped by one Sunday and was greeted by people I’d known for years. “How’s Elise?” West Greene teacher Lorrie Cook asked me after service. Just fine! I tell her, working for her dad in Waynesburg building oxygen sequestration units. Lorri, Sharon Creech and her daughter Renee Cranmer make the heavenly harmonies that get parishioners moving as assistant pastor Ryan Tharp on rhythm, Bryan Yukon on lead guitar and Pastor Phil add their voices to the joyful sound. Sara Allen plays beautiful piano and Steve Allison was manning the drum kit the morning I was there – it’s usually Pastor Phil’s wife Janice on drums. But she and Pastor Phil were heading home from a visit to Kentucky, so Ryan gave the sermon and lead the praise team.

When church was over, an Easter parade of kids came spilling out of the Sunday school classroom and the congregation gathered on the front steps for a photograph. I talked to Pastor Phil’s mom and dad, Phil and Marlene and got some great leads for my story about Ryerson. Church elder Roger Creech of Nineveh showed me the photo album of the new church being built by a slew of hired contractors. Pastor Phil told me later that Open Door Baptist Church of Follansbee WV came for a week seven years ago to frame the addition that is now two classrooms and an office. New Beginnings is part of a cooperative of 21 churches here, in West Virginia and Ohio that help each other and their communities whenever the need arises. Two years ago New Beginnings helped out after Cameron was flooded, last year they helped rebuild a home in Copper Basin, Tennessee. This year “We’ll be looking to do something, God willing,” Phil said.

Sunday School starts at 10:30 a.m. and Church Service is at 11. Visitors, old friends and neighbors are welcome!