Bethany church to mark 100th year
BY CARLA HINTON
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Published: October 17, 2009
BETHANY — As the first Church of the Nazarene district superintendent for Oklahoma, Johnny Jernigan had one goal: to establish churches that would provide a solid, moral foundation for the communities they served.
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Bethany First Church of the Nazarene Centennial Celebration
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Bethany First Church Centennial
→When: Centennial mosaic unveiling, 2 p.m., and celebration party, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Oct. 24. Centennial worship service, 10 a.m., and centennial luncheon, noon Oct. 25. →Where: 6789 NW 39 Expressway, Bethany. →Information: 789-2050 or www.bethanynaz.org.
Helped develop area
Members Greg Bowes and Cindy Overholt oversee a church committee charged with obtaining historical facts and preparing for the celebration.
Bowes said Mattie Mallory moved into Oklahoma Territory in 1892 and opened an orphanage in Oklahoma City in 1897. He said when Jernigan and his wife, C.B., moved to Oklahoma in 1909, Mallory turned over a school and a home for unwed mothers to the Nazarene church.
She called the area Beulah Heights, and when a railroad company offered her land just west of there, she accepted and relocated the establishments to what is now Bethany.
"It was part of a forestry reserve for Fort Reno. This was undeveloped land out here; nobody was living out here,” he said.
Bowes said Jernigan wrote that when he walked around the land that later became Bethany, "he said he had a vision from God that showed him a town and a college and a great church, and so he immediately decided that this is what they were to do.”
Bowes said the Jernigans developed the land and started selling lots to fund the college and other facilities. Besides Bethany First Church, they helped establish Oklahoma Holiness College that became Southern Nazarene University. He said the orphanage evolved into a convalescent home due to a polio epidemic. Eventually it became the Children’s Convalescent Home and now is The Children’s Center in Bethany. The center is run by a volunteer board of directors.
Bowes said the Nazarene church was the main source of revenue for the home for unwed mothers. In 1916, the home was closed after C.B. Jernigan’s health began to fail. About 700 girls had lived at the home during its existence, he said.
Throughout their missionary efforts, the Jernigans paved the way for the growth of the church, their primary establishment.
"It was amazing what they did in a year,” Bowes said. "He said he felt that this land was set aside by God just for this purpose. They put their driving energy out here.”
By 1914, the church was the largest Nazarene church in Oklahoma with 123 members, Bowes said. The congregation built a new church that could seat 1,000 people in 1925. At the time, church membership was 575, while Bethany’s population was about 400, he said.
In 1967, the congregation broke ground for a 2,500-seat cathedral at the church’s current location. The sanctuary was dedicated in 1969, with total cost for the project about $1.7 million.
True to early mission
Busic said the church now has about 5,000 members, with average Sunday attendance of 2,500. He said church leaders considered having their usual two services for the anniversary but decided against it.
"It will be a challenge, but we just decided to do one big blow-out.”
He said he grew up in Bethany, so when he became pastor of the church about five years ago, it was a homecoming of sorts.
He said the church has continued on the course set by Jernigan.
"The things that have sustained us for 100 years (are) that we wanted to be a place of Christian community, and we wanted to be a place of compassion, and we wanted to be a place of mission. That’s how this was born, and that mission has stayed true,” he said.
"That’s what has been the DNA of this congregation and this city, I believe, all these years.”
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