Taylor's Chapel Enters Second Century

Country Church Refuses to Die,

Entering its Second Century

By Jeff Clark

        Drive enough back roads, you get used to seeing boarded up churches. Cemeteries becoming pastures.

Taylor’s Chapel in Comanche County didn’t get the word. Sure, the surrounding Soda Springs Community up and died decades ago, its school locked its doors, most families moved away.

            The church fell to seven people in 1993. “We almost died,” member Peggy Vineyard told me. Then those pioneer families started moving back when they retired. New friends joined in.

            Services begin at 9:30 a.m. Sunday mornings. Get there 30 minutes early, it’s just you, Gary Bragg and the cemetery out back. Bragg turns on the lights, makes coffee. Taylor’s Chapel sits nine miles north of Comanche, off the pavement a far piece.

            Folks file in. The church bell stops ringing. “Sammy, lead us off in prayer,” Bragg asks from the pulpit. Sammy Vineyard, five pews back, his family here over a century asks God to get them started.

            These are Congregational Methodists. Self-governing. Call your own minister. Don’t tell us what to do.

            They are also some of the friendliest folks I’ve met in a month of Sundays, most of 27 members walking over, shaking hands. “I’m glad you’re here.” It’s hard to be invisible.

            This church started as a brush arbor in 1901 by Brother Jim Havner, a farming circuit preacher. The area boasted a school, cotton gin and an 1881 graveyard. The church bought two acres from Hood Taylor for $20 in 1902. “The old land is worn completely out,” he said. “Ya can’t raise corn on it no more, and ya can’t raise cotton on it no more. I’ll just let you Methodists have it to raise hell on.”

            There’s a Prayer List passed out this morning, names read one at a time. One lady talks about her son. Another about her recent operation. A conversation back and forth, their concern is their prayer.

            They sing four hymns back to back, led by an energetic Mary Gillium whose high altitude voice guides others through The Lilly of the Valley. Four men and three little girls form their choir. Most live nearby, a few from Comanche, a few picked up from the rest home. Ages range from late 40s to 93.

            The regular preacher Robby Stuteville is off with grandkids the Sunday I visited. He’s been showing up one Sunday at a time for seven years. The church feels blessed to have this retired school superintendent lead their flock, Baptist though he may be.

            “We pray that Brother Robby doesn’t leave us,” Peggy confided. Member H. R. Helm walks to the pulpit to bring the message this day. His thick Bible is packed with slips of paper, notes to lead him.

“We should all be ready to go to heaven,” he reminds, “but I want to stay alive a little longer.” Helm wants to pass his lifetime of knowledge to grandkids, to his 13-year-old grandson. They’ve spent Spring Break inventing a battery-powered pizza cutter.

“Make that decision,” he grows a little louder. I brace myself for the dreaded altar call, but my fear is misplaced. H.R. looks into his friends’ faces. “Why won’t we decide and ACT to serve the Lord now?”

Helm’s stories are so honest they’re painful, more like family than church.

The first church house was built in 1902. The plan called for the church to face south, “but the wind blew so hard it turned the church around to face west. Members discussed trying to turn it back, but they decided the Lord had a hand in it, and they let it stand the way He left it.”

A tabernacle was added in the 1930s, the current chapel rising in 1948. They added a fellowship hall, built a new tabernacle, dug a well and installed air conditioning in 1960, restrooms and a steeple in 1993. Eleven stained glass windows were added by 1996.

“I remember that my grandpa Samuel Charles Vineyard sat in the ‘A-men corner,” Irene Day remembered. “And when he prayed he would kneel facing the back of the pew. When he finished he would be on his knees with his hand raised. I thought Grandpa knew the Lord better than the preachers.”

“You feel the love of God here,” Peggy Vineyard said, “and the love of the people. That’s the way it’s always been.”

That old church saw ice cream socials, pulpit-pounding revivals, shaped-note singings and dinner on the grounds for many decades. James Chapman remembered, “They got to know and love each other at events like these, and they were there for each other when sickness and grief came to call.”

They were there for each other, last Sunday.

Taylor’s Chapel baptizes folks in the stock tank by the cemetery. The chapel saw a wedding two years ago, periodic funerals, luncheons and baby showers. They teamed up with Broken Bronc Cowboy Church in nearby Beattie for vacation bible school last summer, hosting nine children.

Thirty minutes after the church bell began this service, it’s over. It normally runs longer, I’m told. Members walk to the fellowship hall to visit. Thirty minutes after that, the parking lot is empty, save Mr. Bragg, shutting off lights, getting ready to go again next Sunday.

This country church ain’t dying.