Despite a massive fire destroying their more than century-old church building on Saturday, members of the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Darlington County, South Carolina, gathered for worship in tents at the site of their church to give God glory on Sunday morning.
“You can have church anywhere. But today, having everyone show up for us, be here. The church was still together without the building,” churchgoer Tinika Reeves told WBTW.
The Darlington County Sheriff’s Office said they responded to reports of smoke at the church, led by the Rev. Eugene Thomas, shortly after 4 p.m. on Saturday. Once they arrived, the church was found engulfed in flames. The Palmetto Rural Fire District also responded to the fire with assistance from the Darlington Fire Department, Darlington County Fire District, Windy Hill, and West Florence Fire-Rescue, according to a statement released by the agency on Sunday.
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“Our thoughts and prayers are with Reverend Eugene Thomas and the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church family,” the Palmetto Rural Fire District said.
While the church was founded in 1869 by the Rev. Daniel Jesse, the now destroyed building was constructed in 1910.
Brian Gandy, director of the Darlington County Historical Commission and Museum, offered prayers to the church on Saturday as he mourned the loss of one of the county’s oldest organized African American churches.
“What a sad day — it appears that Pleasant Grove Baptist Church may be a total loss,” he wrote in a statement on Facebook.
“This congregation is one of the oldest organized African American churches in Darlington County and has a very rich history in the Back Swamp/Pocket Road community. This church is made up of extremely strong members with a rock solid faith,” he added. “This will be a blow, but with the members that I know at Pleasant Grove, they will rise above this and continue their legacy of serving God and their community. My prayers are with them!”
The Rev. Thomas told WBTW that after news of the fire had spread, he was making plans to worship at the nearby New Providence Missionary Baptist Church when his members gave him a different perspective.
“All of a sudden, so many members came to me and said, ‘we want to be on our ground tomorrow.’ And I said, ‘yes, that’s it. That’s perfect. That’s just where we need to be at this time,’” he said.
Seeing the remains of the destroyed church for the first time wasn’t easy, however.
“Once we pulled into the driveway, it was real. We felt it. And we just saw our building being totally destroyed,” Reeves said.
Thomas said when he first heard about the fire at the church, he prayed before going to the scene, but he was still broken by what he saw of the historic building.
“I headed out here. And when I got here and saw the shape it was already in, that church was basically gone. I was just broke,” he told WBTW.
Despite the loss, his congregants have reminded him what is truly important.
“That’s what I’ve seen through this,” he added. “That the church is one thing, and it’s not a building. It’s the people.”
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