An Interview with Pastor Jerry Crowley of the Harmony Church in Ellsinore, MO.

Every year an estimated 1% of the churches in the United States close their doors. This means that about 4,000 churches annually cease to exist. Many times a new church will restart in the same site but only rarely does a congregation that closed its doors unclose those doors. In spite of National trends, the Harmony General Baptist Church in rural Carter County, Missouri is now unclosed!

We asked Pastor Jerry Crowley to tell part of the Harmony Church story as we celebrate with this UnClosed church.

1 . Harmony Church is an older church. can you tell us about its early history?

The church actually started on Cane Creek about two miles away from its current location in July, 1927. This is actually the third church building that has been there. To find the church from Elsinore take Highway A to County Road 354 follow it about 2 miles, go through a wet weather creek and if the creek’s not too high (occasionally we have to postpone services due to high water), you’ll drive right up to the church.

2. Harmony Church closed its doors. About how long was the church closed?

The church closed for a few months. It wasn’t closed very long. Some folks moved away and others just quit coming.

3. What motivated you and others to reopen the church?

Well this was my old home church. I just couldn’t stand to see it closed. It’s been an old-time General Baptist church for a long time. I just couldn’t see it closed. Some people went there the Sunday before we started and Josh Francis actually got started and 4 or 5 others of us came along to help.

4. The church is located in a very rural area, in a sparsely populated county. Where did you find people to reopen the church?

We just started announcing around in the community that there was going to be a church opening. That we were going to start it back. We just started visiting people in their homes and asking them to come. God has done the rest.

5. What have been some of the greatest struggles in reopening?

We had no money. We had no furnace. We had no insurance on the building. No nothing. We got the title to the property by just re-starting and re-organizing anew as Harmony Church and we opened the doors.

6. What have been some of the greatest joys in reopening?

I’ll be honest with you and I’ve pastored for years and years and I have never encountered anything like this. God has done amazing things. Never have we had one cross word in a business meeting. The people have given generously and there is a sweet spirit among them. Everybody’s in one mind and one accord and God is the head of it and that makes a great big difference. It’s been amazing. Every time we have needed something God has provided.

7. What kinds of ministries does the church now offer?

The most helpful as far as the church is concerned is that we have been doing a lot of home based ministries for people that are sick. We have helped some of them with monetary assistance—about $10,000 this last year. The folks in the community have taken notice that we are a giving church and they want to come see what we are about. Even folks from Texas have sent us checks because they heard what we were doing. Right now we are offering a normal schedule of Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday. We do a children’s church for our kids.

8. You recently dedicated a new addition to your building. Can you tell us about it?

The little church was pretty small and when we started running 75-80 people I told them that if we didn’t do something to get a little more room we could only run about 70% of our capacity. We added a 50 foot addition to give seating for about 50 more. We can seat about 150 now.

9. What long range plans have been developed to guide the church’s ministry?

Well we’d like to keep growing and our fellowship hall only seats about 50 people, so we hope if possible to build a larger fellowship area and some more classrooms.

1 0 . How many folks generally attend your weekend services?

When we started we had about 20 folks and on our building dedication day we had 155 present. Typically we run 80-100 every weekend.

1 1 . Have you seen conversions and baptisms since reopening?

We’ve seen a dozen baptisms this first year and we haven’t seen an amazingly large number of conversions yet but we are seeing people in church who have not been in church for 50 years.

12. What advice would you give to others who may be considering reopening or restarting a closed church?

Do a lot of praying and trust Him because He will help. It’s been amazing to see what He has done. We started last year with no money and now we’ve spent $75,000 on the new addition. We’ve given away $10,000 to local missions and if we paid in what we have on hand we’d only owe about $6,000 on the little note we borrowed to do the building.

I’ve never been in a place like this before. It’s something that’s special and I feel like God is the one that has done it. It is nothing we have done but it is just because of God and people willing to be led by Him. I want to give God the glory and say “Thank You Jesus” for all He has done.