Church

When I "retired" from full-time local preaching we decided to worship with the Washington Avenue Church of Christ in Russellville, Alabama
When I was in my teens my family moved into Russellville, but we continued to attend the Quinn's Memorial church in the community where we had previously lived. Quinn's only had services on Sunday morning in those days but Washington Avenue had Sunday and Wednesday evenings services. My grandmother attended all services at Washington Avenue. I would attend the night services with her. I received much of my early training and sound doctrinal foundation from teaching I received from these services. I suspect that we chose to attend there again for sentimental reasons.

Washington Avenue Church of Christ

About a year after my "retirement" Washington Avenue found itself looking for a preacher and I agreed to "fill-in" while we were looking. Well, so much for "retirement," after several weeks of "filling-in," in a business meeting of the men of church, February 7, 2007, I agreed to abandon the "filling-in" role and move into the preacher's home next door and work with church regularly as local evangelist.

I don't know how long the Lord will continue to bless me with the good health to do this work, but I am looking forward to our work with Washington Avenue in this role until either I am no longer able to do the work or the brethren and/or I decide to terminate the arrangement.

Washington Avenue has a radio program that has been on six day a week continuously beginning right after the radio station went on the air in 1949. It can be heard locally at 8:30-8:45 each morning by tuning to 920 on your AM dial. It can also be heard via live internet feed by clicking on the WGOL logo,

This church is one of the older churches in Alabama. Restoration historian, Earl West, tells of the origin of this congregation:

Another strong Alabama church before the (Civil - EB) war was located at Russellville. This congregation was established in 1842 under unusual circumstances. Tolbert Fanning left Nashville on January 20, 1842, on a tour of the South. He visited Franklin and Columbia in Tennessee and found these churches nearly dead. He went on to Florence and Tuscumbia, Alabama, and from here to Russellville. At the latter place he met Dr Sevier, son of a former governor of Tennessee, who was the only member of the church in the city. Fanning spent a night in the city and preached on the importance of searching the scriptures. The next morning he started to leave town. About a mile from the city the slender carriage gave way. He was informed that it would take several days to repair it. He and his wife walked back to town through the mud, and here again he began an extended gospel meeting. He preached a week, and twenty were baptized. But Fanning was tired. He went to Tuscumbia , and W. H. Wharton came down to help. Before the meeting ended, Fanning baptized two doctors, one lawyer, the clerks of the county, circuit and chancery courts with their families, the wife of the postmaster, the jailer and his household, and the wife and daughter of the sheriff. The meeting ended with seventy-four additions. Later, Fanning reported one hundred and five additions, indicating that others soon came in as a result of the meeting." (The Search for the Ancient Order, Vol. I, Earl West, pp.140-141)