Red Letter Day For
Spanish Fort Presbyterian Church

by Mary Jane Skinner

On Sunday, January 21, 2007, the new front doors were opened wide at Spanish Fort Presbyterian Church in Spanish Fort, AL, as the congregation gathered at the 11 o'clock worship service and later at dinner in the Fellowship Hall to officially dedicate the church's new facilities. Dr. Laura Mendenhall, president of Columbia Theological Seminary, preaching from a text in Samuel, led the congregation in recognition of the fact that although they had planned and paid for the new Youth Wing, Music Suite and Front Entrance, it was indeed God who was establishing a home within the congregation, as individuals and as a whole, rather than the congregation's building a new dwelling for God.

In keeping with the thrust of this celebration, the first group to use the church following the dedication was the Interfaith Hospitality Network. IHN is an association of 13 churches of various denominations in Mobile and Baldwin counties who each for a week at a time house, feed and counsel homeless families, working with them to find fulltime fulfilling work and restore their families to adequate housing.

Starting a capital campaign in 2003 entitled "Thankful for the Past, Preparing for the Future," this congregation continued the mission begun some 40 years ago as sixty members chartered the church and began worship in rented rooms at a local motel. The current sanctuary, education buildings and Fellowship Hall were constructed in the 1970s and 1980s. At a cost of almost one million dollars, the new facilities, designed by Gatlin & Huson, Architects, and built by G. M. Stuart Construction Company, will enable the congregation" to serve God as faithfully in the 21st century as was done in the 20th."

Worship leaders for the January 21st service: (left to right) Kathryn Threadgill (ministerial candidate at Columbia Theological Seminary), Dr. Julian Walthall (senior minister), Pastor Monnie Anderson (senior minister's assistant), Dr. Laura Mendenhall (president, Columbia Theological Seminary), and Rev. Bert Tuggle (parish associate).

Spanish Fort Presbyterian Church is currently a congregation of approximately 450 members. The extensive full-time staff includes a senior pastor, a parish associate minister, an assistant to the senior pastor, a minister of music, an administrative assistant, and a sexton. The part time staff includes the church financial secretary, organist, pianist, assistant secretary, preschool director and a treasurer. The list of volunteer personnel is overwhelming! Volunteers work not only the IHN program, but eight ministry teams (with a new evangelism team just organized in 2007), Sunday school and youth programs, choirs for children and adults, a bell choir, Stephen Ministries, a Flower Guild, Presbyterian Women, publication of a newsletter, monthly cuttings for congregation's seniors, Shepherds Ministry, rescue and rebuilding efforts in the wake of both Ivan and Katrina, Vacation Bible School, and, of course, the Session; the list could go on and on. SFPC and Alabama's Eastern Shore have both experienced phenomenal growth; it will continue!