Shooks Chapel Methodist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Out in Hopkins County, there's a little church with a story that goes back to 1886, when area settlers decided it was time to get organized. They formed a congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and they needed a name.

They settled on honoring the Reverend W. A. Shook, the man who held the very first revival right there on that ground.

That's the kind of thing that sticks. You hold a revival that moves people, they just might put your name on the building. Now, in those early days, there was no building to speak of.

The congregation gathered under a brush arbor, or they borrowed space in a nearby schoolhouse, whichever the weather and the calendar allowed. Not exactly stained glass and pipe organs, but a community finding its faith in whatever shelter it could find. That matters.

Things got a little more permanent when B. P. Joiner donated the land, and a proper sanctuary finally went up on that donated ground.

The worship services in those early years were led by student pastors, and here's the detail that just about says everything about frontier church life: those pastors were often paid in produce. Not a salary. Not a stipend.

Produce. Whatever the land gave up, part of it went to the man doing the preaching. Connected to the church, and begun in 1889, is a community cemetery, carrying the names of the people who built that congregation from the ground up.

The church itself kept growing and changing with the times. A second sanctuary was built in 1916. That one served its purpose, and then in 1974, a new structure replaced it.

Three buildings across nearly a century of worship, each one standing on the same promise as that first brush arbor. Some things get rebuilt. The roots just go deeper.

What the marker says

This church traces its history to 1886, when area settlers organized a congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The church was named for the Rev. W. A. Shook, who held the first revival here. The congregation met in a brush arbor or a nearby schoolhouse until a sanctuary was built on land donated by B. P. Joiner. Early worship services were led by student pastors who were often paid in produce. Associated with the church is a community cemetery, begun in 1889. A second sanctuary, built in 1916, was replaced by a new structure in 1974.