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Southeastern Evangelistic Groups History Doc. (Rev. Robert J. Denney)
In 1729 two young men from England, John and Charles Wesley, joined other like-minded students at Oxford and formed a society known as the “Holy Club.” This society met on a regular basis to read the Greek New Testament and study classic literature. They found they could not be saved without holiness and encouraged others to pursue holiness as well. On the evening of May 24, 1738 John Wesley’s celebrated “heart warming” experience took place at a religious society on Aldersgate Street in London. Charles had previously had this same experience. While listening to Luther’s description of the change God works in the heart though faith in Christ he says, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust Christ alone for salvation; an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
The associations formed by the Wesley’s and their followers were called societies with many continuing as members of the Church of England. The first Methodist Society was organized in 1739 when eight or ten people convicted of sin earnestly groaned for redemption. The numbers increased daily from this original group. We can condense the early Methodist doctrinal emphasis to three headings:
1. All can be saved.
2. All can know they are saved.
3. Persons and nations can be saved from the power of sin.
By the 1760’s the movement found its way to North America through the ministry of two lay preachers converted to Christ under Methodist preaching in their native Ireland. In 1760 or 1761, Robert Strawbridge brought Methodism to Maryland. Philip Embury brought it to New York in
to share the Gospel. Revivals broke out all over Georgia and if there wasn’t a church, brush arbors were built. Revivals would often last for weeks on end with ministers taking turns preaching.
In the summer of 1932 a group began to meet under a brush arbor in the yard of Clara Bass. She lived in the home known as the Jim Andrew’s place on Old Marion Road. Clara returned to this community with her three children when she was 29. She was concerned there was no place to take her children for religious services. Consequently, she opened her doors to the young people of the community and formed a Young Peoples’ Evangelistic Club. Other homes began to open their doors to this club and prayer meetings were held. Bill Parker was the club’s president and one of the leaders was Reverend Fails Andrews, Clara’s brother.
Cottage prayer meetings were held in the spring of 1932. As interest grew, the people of the community felt the need for a revival. There was no place to hold a revival so Clara suggested building a brush arbor and offered her yard. Britt O’Neal, better known as “Uncle Britt,” agreed to show the men of the community how to build a brush arbor. The people of color were welcome to the revival and many were won to Christ. In a great revival held in August, 1932 and led by Fails Andrews, many souls were committed to God. By September, a Sunday school was started and members of the Evangelistic club were doing the revival preaching.
As summer turned into fall everyone realized the brush arbor was not suitable for services during winter. They decided to build a church. Uncle Britt donated land and at the first meeting $200 was collected. Men and women from the community as well as friends of the church worked together to build the church. November 6, 1932 the church was dedicated and named Union Chapel. Many changes have occurred over the years but Union Chapel remains the oldest church in the Southeastern Evangelistic Groups.
On April 16, 1944 Reverend E. M. Shelton, the former pastor of the Montpelier Avenue Nazarene Church in Macon, Georgia, organized the South Macon Evangelistic Tabernacle. The organizational meeting was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. C.T. Moss with seven people present. The church was chartered under the Southeastern Evangelistic Groups and in 1948 the name was changed to Macon Evangelistic Church.
Reverend Shelton resigned as pastor due to his position at Hart’s Mortuary. Reverend W.W. Cambell took over pastoring the small flock. Permission was granted the church services were held in the Pendleton Homes Community Building which was used as a day nursery. Meetings were held there for three years from 1947-1950. It was during this time Reverend Cambell was forced to resign due to his health and Reverend Rabun O. Smith began to pastor. Under Rabun’s leadership two lots on Lacey Drive were purchased for $500 each. The last chapel at the old camp wheeler was purchased for $800 and moved to the lot on Lacey Drive. In September, 1948 Reverend Smith was moved to Union Chapel and Reverend Roy Oliver with his wife, Kate, and son, Phil, moved from
Americus, Georgia to pastor the church in Macon. The church in Americus was also a Southeastern Evangelistic Church although today it is a Nazarene Church. Under Reverend Oliver’s leadership the chapel was completed and the first service was held September 18, 1950. The sermon the first service was, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
Dr. Joe S. Andrews and his wife, Wilma Jean, came to pastor the church in September, 1953 and remained there for over four decades. In 1967 a new sanctuary was added to the original church. Church members and Dr. Andrews did most of the work on the sanctuary. Twenty-five acres were purchased towards the end of the 70’s just off Interstate 75 South and a new church was built with a school. Another remarkable event at Macon Evangelistic Church is the play, “He Touched Me,” every Easter season. The play developed by Joe and Wilma Andrews was designed to share the events of Christ’s Passion. Tens of thousands of people have seen this play and many lives have been changed. Today Macon Evangelistic Church remains an important fixture to the community of Macon, Georgia and is now under the leadership of Rev. Gary Berrier. The future remains bright for Macon Evangelistic Church.
The story of Union Chapel and Macon Evangelistic Church could be the story of many churches that are and were a part of the Association. S. F. Andrews became nationally known and conducted revivals from Texas to Indiana and Maryland to Florida. A trailer was purchased and large tents were hauled from one revival to another. One of those tent revivals was held in a woods on Como Road in Jay County, Indiana. The Indiana Holiness Camp started as a result of this revival and lives have been changed for years. When the sanctuary for this camp was built the Summer’s family donated most of the wood used for the rafters and their son, John K. Summers, is a minister of the Association. Often when a revival ended, the people in the community, like Union Chapel, stayed together to worship. Churches, camp meetings, and missions were established all over the country. While conducting tent meetings in Texas, S. F. Andrews came in contact with another evangelist, J. H. Hamblen, who became a founding member of the Evangelical Methodist Church. At the time, Hamblen was pastoring some of the largest Methodist churches in the south. Other evangelists joined forces with S. F. Andrews and the movement grew. Some of the early ministers include – Rev. M. J. Wood, Rev. Jimmy Fuller, Rev. Acie Roquemore, and Rev. Frank Chapman. S. F. Andrews and Folks Huzford, a judge from Homerville, Georgia, set up a charter known as the Southeastern Evangelistic Groups, Inc. in 1940. Many of the churches, camps, and missions formed during the previous decades before the charter joined the new Association. This movement was never an effort to form a denomination. It was meant to be an Association of churches who were likeminded and held together by a congregational-connectional system of government. Local churches own their property and call their pastors. A congregational-connectional system does not operate entirely on the local level. Government power and authority in the
1766. Another local preacher who was also a captain in the British Army, Thomas Webb, joined Embury and began preaching the same message.
In 1769 John Wesley sent Richard Broadman and Joseph Pilmore to America. In 1771, he sent Francis Asbury who became the most memorable and influential man in American Methodism. Wesley ordained Thomas Coke and gave him authority as bishop. Coke then came to America and ordained Asbury. The first Annual Conference of the American Methodist was held in Philadelphia in 1773. The business was simple. The preachers present agreed to abide by the doctrines of John Wesley. At that time there were ten preachers, six circuits, and 1,160 members. During a one year period, from 1777 to 1778, eighteen hundred souls were added to the societies. By the end of the Revolutionary War, American Methodism had 83 preachers, 64 stations and circuits, and 14,988 members.
When the United States won independence, most American Methodist had been members of the Church of England. They were, according to the declaration of John Wesley, “Totally disentangled both with the state and the English hierarchy.” He added, “They are now at full liberty to follow the Scriptures and the primitive church, and we judge it best that they should stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has so strangely made them free.” The new church was named the Methodist Episcopal Church. By the middle of the nineteenth century the Methodist Episcopal Church split into the North Church and the South Church. These two groups remained separate until 1939 when they reunited. Joining this reunion was The Methodist Protestant Church.
Toward the end of the 19th century a powerful revival called the “The Holiness Movement” swept through America. Camp meetings were a form of worship started as a result of this revival. These meetings, sometimes called “sacramental seasons,” drew large crowds and contributed significantly to the growth of Methodist as well as elevated the morality of communities. Hundreds of camp meetings developed across America. These revivals continue today.
In the winter of 1931, controversy broke out in the MEC South in Macon, Georgia. Many felt the MEC South was becoming too liberal and were working to make changes from within. Dances were being held in the church’s basement and for some this was the last straw so they left the church. The reunion of the Northern and Southern churches in 1939 created a schism in the Methodist Church. A large number of churches in the southeast left the Methodist Church to form the Southern Methodist Church. This new group was lead by former MEC South bishops Collins Denny and Warren A. Chandler. Many, like those who left the MEC in Macon in 1931, never joined the new group.
It was at this time the Southeastern Evangelical Group began. S. F. Andrews accepted Christ as his Savior at a revival in the First Street MEC South in Macon, Georgia and was later sanctified. He felt the call to preach and became a Lay Preacher and an Evangelist. He went wherever he could.
A Brief History of the Southeastern Evangelical
Association
Association are not established by a local church but by local churches (plural) acting and voting through their delegates at the Annual Conference level. Decisions made at the local church conference are binding on the local congregation and do not obligate any other church or conference. A local church is free or to join or leave the Southeastern Evangelistic Groups as it wishes.
The movement continued to grow throughout the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s as S. F. Andrews, the first President, led the group for more than 30 years. At the death of Andrews, his son, Dr. Joe Andrews, took over the Presidency and served until the 1990’s. The Association was blessed to have over 55 years of leadership under two men. More recently the Association has been led by Reverend Frank Chapman, Reverend Harry Dull, Dr. David Whitner, Reverend David Roland and currently by Reverend Claude Creel. Over the years churches have come and gone but there a few foundations that remain such as Union Chapel. Another foundation is Walter Sark, who has been the Secretary of the Association from its beginning and made it possible to put most of this history together. I tip my hat to Walter Sark the Secretary of the Southeaster Evangelistic Groups, for over 66 years of service to God and this Association.
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