On Sunday, April 24, Deerfield Baptist Church in western Lawrence County will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a special service and a groundbreaking ceremony for its new sanctuary.

Deerfield Baptist was organized as a Missionary Baptist Church in 1916 by Rev. John Irwin, a pastor from Wayne County. During the church’s first dozen years, the congregation met in the old Deerfield schoolhouse one weekend a month.

During those once-a-month weekends, on Saturday evenings, the church would hold a business session, and on Sunday afternoons–after the Deerfield Church of Christ was finished with the schoolhouse–the Baptists would hold their services.

In those first few years, Deerfield Baptist held many brush-arbor revivals (special church services held outdoors beneath temporary shades), and the church baptized new believers in nearby creeks, a practice it continued until the late 1960s. Deerfield Baptist and nearby Greenwood Methodist also frequently held joint revival services.

The first sanctuary of Deerfield Baptist, pictured here, was built in 1928 on land donated by Deacon T.M. Dixon. From the cutting of timber for lumber to the hammering of the final nail, that first sanctuary was built completely by the members of the church. It had coal-oil lamps along the walls for light, and in the summertime, bats frequently flew through the open windows during evening services.

The church’s current brick sanctuary was finished in 1956. To help pay for the building, church members held special suppers, sold quilts for $3.00 each, and raised cotton in the church’s cotton patch.

Lawrence County History Trivia congratulates Deerfield Baptist on its first one-hundred years of ministry, and sends wishes that its second hundred years will be even more fruitful than its first.

Do you know of a local congregation or organization celebrating a milestone anniversary? Let us know, and we will be happy to share your good news with our readers.