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Piney Grove Baptist Church will celebrate its 135th anniversary all day Sunday with special speakers music and lunch. Thirty-eight pastors served the church in those 135 years, some more than once. James Coulter served as first pastor on Sept. 5, 1873. Adrian Jones is current pastor. A "local boy," Jones accepted the call to the pastorate in 2001.

Long-time members Margaret Potter, Ralph Grindstaff, Fran Williamson, and Pat Cutshaw will be among those attending. They've grown up together in Piney Grove Baptist Church. Their teasing banter moves easily from stories of mean roosters to firecrackers set off in a Sunday school room and even an attempted robbery during the church one Sunday evening. Of course, they're quick to tease one another about how they grew up.

"I said, the problem with us is that we played with the deacon's kids," said Fran Williamson, whose father was Thurmon Arnold, the church's 29th and 33rd pastor. Pat Garland Cutshaw quickly counters with the same remark, but in reverse. She is the daughter of one of the church deacons, the late Noah Lee Garland. "It was us having to play with the pastor's kids," she quipped.

Cutshaw even remembers the time something happened to her old pet rooster, and the family ate it for a dinner Pastor Garland attended. She said she got madder the more the pastor talked about how good the chicken dinner tasted.

Like many children living in that era, the four attended church "every time the doors opened."

"We were there every service, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening. Daddy didn't miss," Cutshaw said. "He was treasurer of the church for a very long time, and he was ordained as a deacon in 1946." Cutshaw remembered the looks her father would give her from across the room if she and her sister, Barbara Larson, talked during the service.

"All he had to do was look at me and my sister and we knew we would be in big trouble if we didn't stop," she said.

Family of faith

Potter and Grindstaff lived across the street in a big white farmhouse. Potter remembers her mother walking all six children across the road. Since their parents were custodians for many years, Grindstaff helped with such things as stoking the furnace.

Williamson moved into the parsonage with her family in 1952, when her father, Thurman Arnold, accepted the pastoral call as Piney Grove Baptist's 29th pastor, and was the second family to occupy the parsonage. Arnold served seven years as pastor the first time, and returned for another seven years in 1966. Under Arnold's guidance, the church built the Education Building on his first tenure, and a new parsonage on his second. Williamson remembers more than 200 people attending Sunday School in the 1950s. Attendance dropped off to about 100 in the 1960s, "due to people not interested in going to church like when I was a young person," she said. She's still tied to the pastor's family in an indirect way. The pastor's daughter married her son, so Adrian Jones is her son's father-in-law.

The three women have participated in church activities and services in some way throughout the years. Potter taught Sunday school and sang in the choir. Because her husband has leukemia, they aren't able to attend church as much. Cutshaw is nursery director. She said she started working in the nursery about 40 years ago, and helped in the kitchen.

Focus on missions

Piney Grove Baptist Church now offers both contemporary and traditional music, Sunday schools for all ages, and Vacation Bible School in the summer, among other offerings. For the past six years, the church sponsored mission trips to areas destroyed by natural disasters as well as overseas.

"We are very mission-minded," Williamson said. "The trips are paid by the church." She said their groups either work on churches or houses that were damaged. Last year, she said, the church repaired houses in Big Stone Gap destroyed by a tornado. The church also helped build a church in Webster, S.D., among other places.

Having a strong church family has helped Cutshaw get through a recent bout of cancer.

"Their love and support that my church has shown me all through this, the hugs, cards and phone calls -- they went through it with me," she said. "They offered to take me to treatments and I think all the prayers have helped. I have made it through chemo and radiation, and I'm doing super."

In preparation for the anniversary celebration, crosses and photos of former pastors are set on the window sills in the sanctuary. A display board sits nearby, showing each of the church's buildings. Two quilts hanging on the wall in one of the other rooms likely will get a lot of attention. Made in 1993, the quilt features blocks containing names of families attending the church. Many of those whose names are on the quilt are gone now, someone pointed out. Edna McDonald Morris, 95, reigns as the oldest member of the church.

On Sunday, former pastors John Smith and R.M. Everett will speak at 10:30 a.m. to those gathering to celebrate Piney Grove Baptist's 135th anniversary. Bob Thomas will direct the music. Following a lunch at noon, David Webster, who served as an interim pastor, is slated to speak after the meal. The music group, Victorious," will perform.