Bethel AME celebrating move to new facility in Fort Valley

FORT VALLEY -- July is a month of celebration for Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The congregation is marking its move into a new, $750,000 facility with a variety of special events highlighting the 145-year-old church’s history and future.

The Rev. William Hopkins, pastor, said more than 300 invitations have been sent to family, friends and dignitaries to attend special services. He said the public is invited as well.

“The first known gathering leading to establishment of the church dates back to 1870,” Hopkins said. “They met in a brush arbor situation about two miles from where we’re located today in the Powersville area. Construction on the first building where we are now began in 1875 and was completed in 1890.”

Hopkins said a second building was built in 1902 and that a building on property burned to the ground in 1935. The building the congregation met in prior to moving into its contemporary structure was built in 1958 and demolished to make way for the new.

Hopkins said the small congregation is moving from a typical 1,500-square-foot rural church building with no amenities but restrooms to a 6,000-square-foot facility with modern amenities including a large sanctuary, fellowship hall, classrooms, up-to-date sound and projection system, choir loft, pastor’s study and other special purpose rooms.

“When I first came to pastor Bethel AME in 2009, they began talking about moving into a new building, but I saw there were other things to do first,” he said. “Things like going from meeting every other Sunday to every Sunday. As we stepped out in faith a number of wonderful things began to happen.”

Hopkins said the church raised more than $50,000 toward a new building. And it got an unexpected call from the Georgia Department of Transportation.

“They had a construction project in the Sardis Church Road area of Bibb County,” he said. “They ran into an African-American cemetery that was overgrown, unkept and asked if they could move 101 human remains for burial in our cemetery. The church OK’d it so the state paid for and prepared a portion of our 6.3 acres and expanded our cemetery. They compensated us reasonably well and put us over what we needed to begin building.”

Ground was broken for the new building in late 2013. They began using it in February this year. A bit of the former building’s old façade was saved and used as part of the new.

“Our members are very loyal and dedicated,” Hopkins said. “Some have been associated with the church for 69 years and represent three to four generations. Moving into the new building reflects the satisfaction of a lifetime of hope for many who have remained faithful even in inadequate buildings. I’m glad to have helped it happen, but really it was God’s appointed time. Everyone is very proud of what God has done. We’re traveling a pathway he opened up for us.”

Hopkins travels from Atlanta to minister at Bethel. He has served as an Army infantryman, in education, as a business owner and as a state worker. He has numerous degrees ranging from history to psychology and public administration to divinity. He is working toward a Ph.D. in law and public policy administration.

Hopkins pastors Bethel supported by his wife, the Rev. Emmalyn Jordan-Hopkins, who is an ordained Christian Methodist Episcopal Church minister. The two met while attending Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.

“Bethel is courageously moving forward in faith,” Hopkins said. “I hope we can be as courageous and show the same Christlike character and testimony our brothers and sisters at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church have shown in the face of tragedy, by their forgiving the one who injured them. They’re taking the right attitude. Though society and systems need to change, they showed great grace and God’s love.”

On June 17, a gunman shot 10 and killed nine people at Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. Senior pastor and state Sen. Clementa C. Pinckney was among those killed.

Contact Michael W. Pannell at mwpannell@gmail.com.

This story was originally published July 1, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Bethel AME celebrating move to new facility in Fort Valley."