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Our next Gospel Meeting will be Dec. 6-9, 2009 with John Gibson

Washington Avenue Church of Christ
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Washington Avenue

When I was in my teens my family moved into Russellville, Alabama, but we continued to attend the Quinn's Memorial church in the community where we had previously lived. Quinn's only had services on Sunday morning in those days but Washington Avenue had Sunday and Wednesday evenings services. My grandmother lived in Russellville and attended all services at Washington Avenue. I would attend the night services with her. I received much of my early training and sound doctrinal foundation from teaching I received from these services.

After over 50 years of "full-time" local work with churches in three states, I decided to "retire," do some writing, teach some classes and hold some meeting -- when brethren would have me. At the time of my "retirement" we had worked with the Isbell church just south of Russellville for 13 years. We decided to continue to live in Russellville and worship with Washington Avenue, I suspect for sentimental reasons, when we had no preaching appointments or classes to teach elsewhere.

So much for retirement

About a year after my "retirement" Washington Avenue found itself looking for a preacher and I agreed to "fill-in" while they were looking. Well, so much for "retirement," after four months of "filling-in," in a business meeting of the men of the church, February 7, 2007, I agreed to abandon the "filling-in" role and move into the preacher's home next door and work with the church regularly as local evangelist.

I don't know how long the Lord will continue to bless me with the good health to do this work, but I am enjoying this role and will likely continue until either I am no longer able to do the work or the brethren and/or I decide to terminate the arrangement -- or until my family tells me that I am losing it and need to give it up.

The Beginning of this congregation

This church is one of the older churches in Alabama. Restoration historian, Earl West, tells of the origin of this congregation:

Another strong Alabama church before the (Civil - EB) war was located at Russellville. This congregation was established in 1842 under unusual circumstances. Tolbert Fanning left Nashville on January 20, 1842, on a tour of the South. He visited Franklin and Columbia in Tennessee and found these churches nearly dead. He went on to Florence and Tuscumbia, Alabama, and from here to Russellville. At the latter place he met Dr Sevier, son of a former governor of Tennessee, who was the only member of the church in the city. Fanning spent a night in the city and preached on the importance of searching the scriptures. The next morning he started to leave town. About a mile from the city the slender carriage gave way. He was informed that it would take several days to repair it. He and his wife walked back to town through the mud, and here again he began an extended gospel meeting. He preached a week, and twenty were baptized. But Fanning was tired. He went to Tuscumbia , and W. H. Wharton came down to help. Before the meeting ended, Fanning baptized two doctors, one lawyer, the clerks of the county, circuit and chancery courts with their families, the wife of the postmaster, the jailer and his household, and the wife and daughter of the sheriff. The meeting ended with seventy-four additions. Later, Fanning reported one hundred and five additions, indicating that others soon came in as a result of the meeting." (The Search for the Ancient Order, Vol. I, Earl West, pp.140-141)