Brief History Of Pine Level Church

The following was published in the Free Will Baptist Messenger
September 1956

Back in the year of 1897 there was only one Free-Will Baptist Church in Pine Level. This church belonged to the Western Conference. Elder J. H. Worley was pastor and in November of the same year held a two weeks revival. Saints shouted up and down the aisles of the church. Forty-six were gloriously converted, were baptized and added to the church. Mattie Gerald, author of this article in 1956, was one of those members.
In 1908, Rev. H.H. Goff and wife and Rev. Mack Alexander came to Pine Level and held a Pentecostal revival in the same church. Several went through to Pentecost and as a result, the church split. About one hundred of its membership, with the pastor, Rev. J. H. Worley, went down on the north side of town and worshipped in a pack house until we could secure a lot on the south side of town.
Our pastor, Rev. Worley, was a contractor, so he together with several of his men members went to work on the same building we now worship in. While the men worked, the sisters cooked lunch each day for them. Among them was my mother, Mrs. M.C. Davis. Some of the Messenger readers will remember her. Her memory still lives in our hearts and at the church.
In just a few years we joined the Wilmington Conference. Today the church is called Pine Level Free-Will Baptist Holiness Church (of the Wilmington Conference). Through the years we have had many battles to fight, the tobacco issue being one of the worst. We lost several members during that period. During the First World War (about 1917) Rev. K.D. Brown was pastor. He organized a Sunday school, which is still going with 123 members and average attendance of 100 each Sunday. Since 1946 we have added six Sunday school rooms to the church.

Since 1956 when this article was published several things have happened to the Pine Level Church. In 1991 we switched from Pentecostal Free Will Baptist to Pentecostal Holiness denomination. We have since grown to 300 members and enough children to hire a Youth Pastor.

 

**If you have any additional information about the history of the Pine Level PH Church we would love to hear from you. Please e-mail our historian Jennie van der Helm