Missouri Baptist Convention restores Old Bethel Church

A white string tied to wooden stakes.

A pile of 200-year-old logs and a stack of shovels.

All lead up to one thing: The first Baptist church west of the Mississippi River is about to be resurrected.

On Friday, those involved in the Old Bethel Baptist Church restoration project gathered at the site for a picnic and groundbreaking ceremony.

The site is just outside Jackson near Goose Creek, down a narrow gravel road. There's a cemetery there as well that has recently undergone improvements to grave markers.

"It's just been quiet out here. No one has really paid attention to it until now," said Melvin Gateley, a Cape Girardeau resident and member of the Missouri Baptist Convention's historical commission.

Dr. David Clippard, executive director of the MBC, which owns the Bethel property, said the restoration is especially significant since non-Catholic services were banned west of Mississippi until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

In 1806, what would become the Bethel congregation met and agreed to build a church. At that time, historians believe there were likely only 50 Baptists in that area.

Clippard said some people may wonder why the convention would spend its time and energy restoring such a remote site.

In answer, he cites Joshua chapter 4, verses 6 and 7: "In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' Tell them ... These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever."

"These stones," said Clippard, indicating the grave stones at the Bethel Cemetery, "represent the people who, for the first time west of the Mississippi, established freedom of religion."

Many of the gravestones are being reconcreted, and those that were unmarked have new stones with the word "unknown" engraved on them.

Some of the stones date back to the 1700s.

In 1861, the church moved to a more convenient site and the logs used to construct the original building were sold to a local farmer who used them in a corn crib.

Several years ago, a local developer found the logs and offered to sell them to the Second Baptist Church in Springfield, Mo., where the Rev. John Marshall, a Cape Girardeau native, was pastor.

"Originally, he planned to sell them as mantle pieces for the subdivision he was building," said Marshall. "If we'd lost them then, they'd have been lost forever."

The restoration will be complete in time for the 2006 Missouri Baptist Convention's meeting in Cape Girardeau.

cmiller@semissourian.com

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