Rep. Faison Lobbies For Beth-Car Recognition

L/R - Pastor Darrell Chambers, TN Representative Jeremy Faison, Dewey MalloyStaff Photo by Tahra Williams

L/R – Pastor Darrell Chambers, TN Representative Jeremy Faison, Dewey Malloy
Staff Photo by Tahra Williams

State Representative Jeremy Faison was in attendance this past Sunday at Beth-Car United Methodist Church in White Pine. He came to present a declaration announcing the church as one of the oldest in the state of Tennessee.

Several years after Methodism was first organized, a Methodist Society was organized at Beth-Car. This was around 1787 or 1788 according to Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee, East Tennessee Edition, published in 1887. The only reference found in the Bible of this name is I Samuel 7:11 and interpreted it means “place of or house of the lamb.”

Early organizers of Beth-Car were: Martin Stubblefield, Richard Thompson, White Moore, and John McAnnallay. In William Garrett’s Recollections of Methodism in Tennessee, he refers to the church as “Moore’s Chapel because White Moore was a useful local preacher.”

The first building used as a place of worship for Beth-Car Society was a log meeting house. The current building was erected in 1848. In 1872 the first General Conference of the Methodist Church met under the leadership of Francis Asbury. The Conference assigned them to the Greene Circuit with Stephen Brooks and Williams Barker as the Circuit Rider Preachers.

Jeremy often visits the Sanitary Drug Store in White Pine and speaks to a group of men known as the Drugstore Cowboys. One day he was sitting in the drugstore and Dewey Malloy looked at him and said, “Jeremy, you know I go to one of the oldest churches in Tennessee.” He told him it was a Methodist church and Jeremy says, “I have always been enthralled with John Wesley because he was an amazing human being and one of my heroes of the faith.”

He asked Mr. Malloy to show him some of the history of the church and said it might very well be one of the oldest churches in Tennessee. He said if it was, something needs to be done to honor that. Jeremy asked if anyone had ever put them on record as one of the oldest churches and Mr. Malloy said he only knew of it being done on the Methodist records.

Jeremy aquired a book with the history of the church and took it to Nashville with him. After sitting down with our state attorneys and drafting a resolution, Beth-Car UMC is now recorded as one of the oldest churches in the state of Tennessee.

The history of the church from the beginning to now is lengthy and very interesting to those in the community. The church is located at the corner of Beth-Car Road and White Birch Road in White Pine. The pastor is Darrell Chambers. Services begin each Sunday morning at 9:00 am and all are invited to join in worship with them.

Source: Tahra Williams, Jefferson County Post Staff Writer