Local News - September 2003

Salem Baptist to rebuild

Picking up the pieces

ALICE SMITH, Staff Writer

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The Rev. Ken Gibson stoops down and carefully  picks up a small piece of blue glass.

Turning it over in his hand, he fingers its smooth edges before placing it on a pile of others in a pink hand towel.

Chunks of glass — tiny, large, jagged, smooth, red, yellow and turquoise — are all that remain of the large stained glass window that loomed over the entrance to Salem Baptist Church.

A bolt of lightning Sunday sparked a blaze inside the church’s sound room that quickly spread to the sanctuary. In a matter of minutes, the large, open area was irreversibly damaged by heat, smoke and fire.

Six fire departments responded quickly to the fire. Firefighters from Boger City, Pumpkin Center, High Shoals, North 321, South Fork and Lincolnton arrived on the scene within 10 minutes.

By that time, the damage was severe.

Church leaders had no other choice than to declare it a total loss.

Within the year, the front part of the brick church will be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up.

Church member Bobby Hord was sitting outside the church when the stained glass window blew out.

“It looked like a bomb. The window just disintegrated,” Hord says, while peering into the blackened church. “Then the flames went out as high as the steeple.”

Gibson, who was inside when the lightning hit, says he heard a loud pop that set off all the alarms.

In the front of the church, he discovered flames.

An ordination service was set to start just half an hour later. The church would have been full.

It was the second time the church had been struck by lightning. About six weeks ago, a bolt destroyed the steeple.

Now, Salem Baptist’s congregation is left to deal with a devastating loss.

A burning smell hangs in the air around the church. Inside, it’s overwhelming.

The high walls are scorched; the soft carpet turned black with ash, soaked from firefighters’ water and crunchy from singed wood.

The bright midday sun shines in from the gaping hole where the window used to be, illuminating the charred choir loft and altar.

Yellow caution tape is stretched from the burnt pulpit to two chairs in the front of the church.

The 17 rows of pews are blackened, and parts of them crumble at the touch. Large light fixtures that hung from the cathedral ceilings sit in some of them, broken chains dangling from above.

Near the back of the sanctuary, tattered hymnals droop over their racks. Their pages are yellow and their edges black.

Tiny pieces of ash flutter down like snow.

The sanctuary, where members came to pray and worship for 27 years, is a dark, hollow shell of what it used to be.

But Gibson says his congregation is ready to move on.

“Of course, they’re saddened, but I think they’re all optimistic,” Gibson says.

“The church building has been destroyed, but the church is people. Salem Baptist Church is alive and well.”

A special outdoor service will be held at 11 a.m. Sunday. Members can dress casually and bring lawn chairs. After this Sunday, services will be held in the Fellowship Hall.

“It will be a time of reflection for the past 27 years … and to give thanks for God’s blessings,” Gibson says. “It will also be a time of commitment to the future.”

Gibson will deliver a message to “let us rise up and build” and will emphasize that it will take faith, commitment and cooperation to complete the daunting task.

A business meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Sunday to elect building committee members.

The ordination service which was canceled because of the fire will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at Bethel Baptist Church.

Gibson is grateful to the fire departments that worked tirelessly to put out the blaze, as well as all the churches that have offered assistance and the use of their facilities.

Salem Baptist members have been stopping by the church since the fire, Gibson says.

They know that picking up the pieces and rebuilding their damaged church will take time and effort.

But for now, they’re happy with picking up a small chunk of broken glass from the ground, a colorful, glittering promise of things to come.

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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