GREENFIELD — There were pioneers who built a log structure for services, warming with charcoal in the colder months.
There were long Sundays spent gathered around faith and food, warm days when the church people ate around tables outside after the service.
There was the long quest to rebuild after a 1950 fire.
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Now it is 2019, and Nameless Creek Christian Church is turning 180.
The Disciples of Christ congregation will celebrate the anniversary of its founding Sunday, the actual anniversary of the day a handful of Jackson Township pioneers gathered and formed a new church.
“We’ve had a good long run,” said longtime member Shela (Arnold) Shultz. “Obviously the faith would be the biggest part.”
George J. Richman describes that circle of Christian believers, which would grow to 150 people, in his 1916 history of Hancock County. He also writes of the charcoal-warmed log structure, “The Union Meeting House.” Another county historian, John Binford, writes that the first house of worship was built in 1841 and was known as Nameless Creek Church.
A frame structure followed in the 1850s, replaced by a “modern rural church home,” as Richman called it, in July 1904. That building was destroyed Feb. 26, 1950, in a fire believed to have been caused by the explosion of the oil furnace. The church had just been remodeled and redecorated.
The tragedy set into motion many fundraisers to rebuild. A men’s choir performed a choir at the Charlottesville school building to gather donations. Church members served up homemade pies and other food in booths at the Hancock County 4-H Fair and the Indiana State Fair. For years an annual smorgasbord at the church, which met for several years in its basement, drew diners and free-will offerings for the building project. It was served on real plates, Shultz recalls.
“We had a crew of people who washed and kept things going,” she said.
The church dedicated its new sanctuary in September 1957.
Shultz remembers sitting on pink and blue plastic chairs with other children during the years of meeting in the basement. She was baptized in 1961 at the church, where her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents had attended before her.
At one time Wilma Kennedy saw four generations of her own family going to the church simultaneously. She’s been attending Nameless Creek since around the time she got married in 1949. These days there are about 35 people in the congregation, she said. Yet in the current group she sees the camaraderie of those church members who washed dishes and sold pies together in decades past.
“We’re a close-knit family in the church,” she said. “Everybody works together. That’s the main thing.”
With a milestone anniversary approaching, Shultz recalls past pillars of the church — people “steady in their faith,” steadfast, loving and kind.
They created a welcoming presence, she said, one that stands out to her about the church, one “I hope people feel when they come.”
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Nameless Creek Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) will celebrate 180 years on Sunday. Sunday School begins at 9:30 a.m., and the service begins at 10:30 a.m. A celebration with a pitch-in dinner and historical remembrances will follow worship. The church is located at 3856 N. County Road 800E, Greenfield.
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