MORENCI — Small but mighty. It’s an apt description of the congregation at Morenci’s Church of the Nazarene, where about 75 people gather for worship on an average Sunday and where members recently celebrated a century of faith, service and community.
The church marked its 100th anniversary with a weekend celebration Aug. 15-16, beginning Saturday with food, children’s activities and displays highlighting a century of church history.
Intermittent rain forced some of the celebration indoors, but did little to dampen the festivities. Children continued to move in and out of two bounce houses provided by James Scott of Hunter Moving and Storage, while tents and tables offered shelter for those willing to brave the wet weather.
Inside, visitors browsed photographs and other displays tracing the history of the congregation.
The congregation’s reach also extends beyond Morenci through its support of Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, which works with local Nazarene churches around the world on community development, emergency relief and programs serving children and families.
One of the displays Saturday reflected that spirit of service in a particularly tangible way. Church member Carol Eddings had crafted small prayer cloths from scraps of fabric, each with a tiny cross sewn inside, and filled a table with them for visitors alongside pamphlets describing the NCM program.
Church member Angela Borton, one of the principal organizers of the celebration, said planning began in March.
“We started out thinking of what we wanted to have,” Borton said.
Organizers initially hoped to bring in food trucks but soon discovered they were already booked.
“So we just decided to do the food ourselves,” she said.
That resulted in a menu of walking tacos, hot dogs, sno-cones, chips and cookies, along with the bounce houses and other activities.
Pastor Vince Flippo, who has served the Morenci congregation for four years, said the theme of the centennial celebration was to “honor the past and look toward the future.”
That history began with a small group meeting in a home at 117 W. Walnut St. As the group grew, members purchased an old Free Methodist church building for $150, dismantled it and moved it to Morenci, where it became the congregation’s first church building.
The present church complex also grew over time, with the sanctuary constructed in the early 1950s and additions made in later decades. Much of the work, Flippo said, was accomplished through volunteer labor by church members.
“The congregation people get together and save money and build,” he said.
It is a pattern that has extended beyond bricks and mortar.
Church tradition traces the congregation’s beginnings in part to Moses Schoonover, a local man whose dramatic conversion became part of the church’s oral history. Flippo said Schoonover, once known for his heavy drinking, experienced what he believed was a divine encounter while praying in his barn at a time when most of his 12 children were seriously ill.
Schoonover and another local convert became part of the small group from which the Morenci congregation eventually developed.
The Schoonover family remained important in the church for generations, along with other longtime families including the Penningtons.
Today the congregation averages about 75 people on a typical Sunday, Flippo said, with attendance sometimes nearing 100.
“We’re here,” he said simply. “Just people. Just people.”
Flippo came to Morenci after serving 23 years as pastor of the Church of the Nazarene in Bedford Township.
The Morenci ministry team also includes John Roney, outreach pastor and food pantry director; Keith Stowell, who is working toward ordination; newly arrived youth pastor Jacob McMunn; and worship leader Jacob Pennington.
The centennial celebration continued Sunday with a special worship service that included participation by former pastors, some in person and others through recorded video greetings.
The service carried through the weekend’s theme of honoring the past while looking toward the future. Music reflected the congregation’s history, moving from traditional hymns associated with earlier generations toward the contemporary praise music heard in the church today.
The service also welcomed McMunn as the church’s new youth pastor — a fitting way to begin the congregation’s second century.
For a church that started with a handful of people meeting in a house, moved and rebuilt its first church building piece by piece and later expanded again through the labor of its own members, the centennial offered a chance to remember not only what had been built, but the people who built it.
And after 100 years, the work continues.