Southern Country Church Tour starts Saturday

Six of the oldest churches within the Gordonville and Tilsit area will be festooned with Christmas decorations during the fourth annual Southern Country Church Tour this weekend.

Marsha Birk is helping coordinate this year's event. She said her home church is St. James United Church of Christ in Jackson, one of the churches featured on the tour.

She said the idea initially came from hearing about the "Northern" Christmas Country Church Tour and Birk wanting to be part of a similar event.

"I didn't really want us to connect to it, because it was already so big," Birk said. "It had 30 churches on it or so."

Birk contacted the organizer of the Christmas Country Church Tour and asked if they'd be opposed to her idea of the Southern Country Church Tour. They were fine with Birk's decision to follow through, she said.

Holiday decorations inside St. Maurus Catholic Church are seen Friday, Dec. 20, 2013, in Biehle, Missouri. (Fred Lynch)

"So that really was the better option, to do our own," Birk said.

In 2014, the Southern Country Church Tour began with five churches, and Whitewater United Methodist Church was added along the way, she said.

Birk said each church decides what its decorations will be, including color scheme.

She said some of the churches even offer refreshments, such as cookies and punch to tour attendees.

Birk said St. James United Church of Christ will be decorated with natural elements for the tour. The church also is celebrating 175 years, she said.

"It's a very old, country church. I always try to decorate and think about what they would've used [in the past] and how they would've decorated," Birk said. "For our church, I try to change things every year, so it's not the same thing."

She said Christ Lutheran Church in Gordonville has a new color scheme for its decorations this year.

And Immanuel Lutheran Church in Jackson will have one tree representing "our sins" and the other tree representing "the taking of our sins," she said.

"With Zion Lutheran, they had been off the tour, so we are excited to have them back," Birk said. "They'll have some new stuff."

And St. James United Church of Christ will host a Christmas program immediately following the tour on Sunday, Birk said.

The tour runs 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. More information can be found by calling (573) 275-6801 or at the event's Facebook page.

jhartwig@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3632