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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us March 16, 2005 A century of worship By Jennifer Squires Ashland Daily Tidings The church still has the old bell Isabella Palmer gave the congregation in 1908, though almost everything else about the Ashland Church of the Nazarene has changed. The original Ashland Church of the Nazarene, pictured in 1911, stood at the corner of Fourth and C streets. Submitted photo In the church's 100-year history, the belfry for Palmer's donated bell has come and gone. Now the bell sits in front of the church on 1760 E. Main St., its home since the church moved from the original location on the corner of Fourth and C streets 14 years ago. Since the first Sunday morning gathering on March 13, 1905, the congregation has been housed in three different churches on two different sites in Ashland, had 32 pastors and, last summer, changed its name to GracePoint. "It's hard to even put your head around 100 years," said Pastor Jim Curty, 40, who has been a part of the church since he was 7 years old. "To think that - over the decades, the incredible change that has gone on." On Sunday morning, the church's oldest parishioner, 91-year-old Sadie Williams, who has been attending GracePoint for 78 years, rang the bell to begin the end of the first century of services for the oldest Nazarene church in Oregon. The Sunday morning service marked the second day of the weekend-long centennial celebration at GracePoint. An open house with historical displays and old photographs drew current parishioners and old friends from all over the West Coast to the church on Saturday afternoon. The two-day birthday party also included an evening service Saturday night, the traditional Sunday morning worship, a visit from the Rogue Valley Old-Timer Car Club and a catered afternoon dinner at the church. "There were people here today I haven't seen in 10 years or more," Curty said. "A lot of people live faraway who came. There were people from Tucson, Ariz., and clear down East Main Street." The membership of GracePoint hovers around 80 people right now. A century ago, when the church's first leader, the Rev. S. B. Rhoades, attended the first District Assembly for the western states, he reported "our membership is 50. Our Sunday School average is 55 with a good corps of teachers." At that time, there were only five organized Nazarene churches in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas. The Ashland church, which was organized by 38 original charter members, helped establish other Nazarene churches and spreading their evangelist message throughout Southern Oregon. The Ashland congregation played a role in planting Nazarene parishes in Medford, Klamath Falls, Grants Pass, Rogue River, Central Point and the Phoenix-Talent area. The mission work of the church took leaders to places like a camp of convicts near Prospect just after the turn of the century to hold meetings introducing people to the Nazarene gospel. Generations later, the church found a different way to reach out to the local community. As Ashland struggled to piece itself back together after the flood of 1997, the church offered its well-drawn water supply free to the public because it had one of the only remaining uncontaminated water supplies in the city. As GracePoint starts to write its second century of history, the congregation hopes to reach out beyond Southern Oregon. The church plans to send a team of missionaries to the Ukraine later this year to build an alcohol rehabilitation center. "What hasn't changed, it seems to me, is the family-friendly atmosphere that happens here," Curty said. "We're still very interested in people." Staff writer Jennifer Squires can be reached at 482-3456 x 3019 or [email protected]. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Free Musick Downloads Slippers Women's & Men's Slippers Ceramic Piggy Banks heloc Calenders 2005 Calender 2005 Accelerate Weightloss Products Memory Foam Mattress tcg student loan consolidation home equity loans teleconferencing W2 Forms Tatoos student loans African Safari Conference Calls - $50/Month Security Systems diamonds Currancy Exchange Online Casinos Community Student Loans Tatoo Poker Games Homeschooling Click Here .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams