Thursday, August 30, 2001
Old-time religion in year 2001
By JEANNINE F. HUNTER
Scripps Howard News Service
RYE COVE, Va. – Railroad tracks hug mountainsides. Farms dot hollows along the Clinch River.
And roadside stores feature vittles, outdoor gear and Bible tracts.County sheriffs and Abrahamic law maintain order in this community just beyond southern Virginia’s Natural Tunnel State Park.
Like cookouts, family reunions and vacations, tent meetings and revivals are a summer tradition for many churchgoers. Bring the evangelist and musicians to town with messages designed to jumpstart the idle and ignite the unchurched.
It was Southern revival in its purest on the muggy Thursday night in August when close to 100 people gathered in a Rye Cove hayfield under a large blue-and-white tent. Rye Cove is outside of Clinchfork, Va.
“I am grateful for this chance to commune with God and meet people whom I may not see all the time,” said the Rev. Clyde Goode, 61, who attends Brick Church in Rye Cove.
The evangelists were the Revs. Jerry Hickman, pastor of Brick Church in Rye Cove, and John Dockery, who works in prison ministry and attends Kingsport’s Bible Way Baptist Church, an independent Baptist church.
The revival services began July 23 and continued every night excluding Sunday – to allow people to worship at their respective churches.
“Some people wouldn’t come to church so we brought this tent to the community,” said Angela Wells, a more-than-50-year member of Brick Church, which was constructed by slaves in the 19th century. “You might not be able to tell it, but there are at least 100 houses in this community. We want to reach the people so when they get saved, they may go to one of the churches in the community.”
The worshippers filled the valley with their wails, prayers and soulful singing while mosquitoes added their buzzing. Cups full of fresh mountain spring water were passed down the rows.
A brief downpour didn’t dampen the spirits of saints and sinners gathered underneath.
From the pulpit, the messages alternated among personal testimonies, sermons and harmonizing youths whose voices reverberated through the night air in a sweet mix of Southern gospel and contemporary Christian tunes.
“People don’t have a desire for the things of God until they’re birthed into the family of God,” said Pam Hickman, Hickman’s wife, who grew up in Bible Way where the Rev. Jack Sturgill is pastor.
“People don’t understand until God saves them, and they have a desire to want to know more, and they feel it’s not a burden to go to church, to fellowship with others and seek to grow closer to God.”
With each cadence of Hickman’s sermon, the intense congregation responded intermittently with “Amen,” “Preach, brother” and “Tell ‘em.”
The message is simple: “God sent his Son to die, to fulfill the law, not to destroy the law or to condemn the lost.”
“Our main purpose is to preach the Gospel to the lost,” says Tommy Davis, a deacon at Bible Way Church, “and that little community over there has a lot of people for such a small area.
“We preach the Word, and let the Lord take care of the rest of it.”
