Deenwood Baptist Church’s congregation began its recovery Sunday morning from the lightning-related fire last week which burned away its sanctuary’s steeple and severely damaged its interior.
Church Pastor Jarrod Everson welcomed his flock to a 9:30 a.m. worship at Winona Park United Methodist. The service came seven days after lightning from a late afternoon thunderstorm Monday, July 6 struck the church.
Nearly three dozen firefighters from three agencies battled the blaze until after midnight.
“Good morning church family,” said Everson, Deenwood’s pastor for the past 17 years, Sunday morning, July 12. “Welcome to this gathering of Deenwood Baptist Church. I’ve been eager to say that all week long, and eager to see us all gathered together again.”
The service was livestreamed on the church’s Facebook page as past ones from their home facility at 1505 Hilliard Street. The congregation plans to worship the remaining Sundays in July at Winona Park while it formulates a worship plan going forward.
One thing is certain in that plan, congregants say, they will rebuild and return to the sanctuary that was dedicated in 1987 after a year of construction.
“As a church member, we will rebuild,” said Dee Meadows, Chief of Ware County Fire and Rescue, whose units initially answered the 5:02 p.m. call. “We might be knocked down a day or two, but not knocked out. We’ll come back better than ever.
“This was nothing more than a building. The church is the people inside.”
Ware County personnel were assisted in their task of battling the blaze by units from the City of Waycross and Pierce County. Chief Meadows praised their aid as well as that of church members and others in the community who quickly gathered to support the firefighters by providing water, other beverages, food and prayer.
“I looked around one time and saw people in a circle in prayer,” Chief Meadows said.
“As a fire chief, I’m so grateful for the partners who helped us and the community that stepped right up to help them.”
The fire was one of two Ware County personnel handled July 6 resulting from lightning strikes. Chief Meadows said about 1:30 p.m, a workshop that was detached from a home on Woodridge Avenue was struck and the resulting fire rendered that structure a total loss.
Chief Meadows said when his units arrived at the church there was heavy smoke coming from the roof.
Pastor Everson was inside the church working when he heard a “loud pop.”
“A few minutes later there was a banging on the front door,” Everson said in a report by a Jacksonville TV station First News. “There was a fireman there, and he said that the building was on fire.”
Church neighbor Cathy Johns placed the 911 call about the blaze.
“It was awful, and it was a very loud bang,” Johns said in a report by Jacksonville TV station News 4 Jax. “I looked up there and saw the very corner of the roof flames coming out, the very quarter and I said ‘lightning has hit the church.’” The sanctuary’s vaulted ceiling initially made fighting the fire difficult.
Chief Meadows said at one point, the firefighters made the agonizing decision to halt fire suppression and let the steeple burn.
“With no second floor or attic, it was hard to get the fire under control,” he said. “The smoke in the sanctuary was terrible, and you could hardly see. It was a hard decision to call to stop the water and get (steeple) burned so we’d have a big hole to let the smoke out.
“Once the steeple fell we could walk in and put the fire out.”
A representative of the Georgia Fire Marshal’s office was on the scene early Monday evening to assess the damage and do a report. Chief Meadows said his report along with a damage estimate was still pending.
“But (fire) will be from a lightning strike,” he said.
Chief Meadows said the fire marshal said the result of the fire was rare in that the brick structure wasn’t compromised outside of its roof area and interior.
That should aid the reconstruction process of the entire sanctuary area.
“He said you don’t see too often four walls stillstanding and the roof not caved in from a fire like this,” Chief Meadows related. “You can walk around and not see first smut mark on any of the brick.
“I never saw a fireman sit down. They all were doing everything in their power to save that church The effort all these people put in is very heartening.”
The chief said he couldn’t think of two better people for the church to rebuild around than Pastor Everson and his wife, Courtney, a teacher.
“I don’t know of any better two people to lead during a time like this,” Chief Meadows said. “This (fire) is just a chapter of a story that will be a great, great book on how this church will return.”
