what I did on my birthday - yes, I’m strange

Last week I got to spend some time with Wayne Kilpatrick of Heritage Christian University. Some people are bored to tears over history, I LOVE it. Especially church history, especially when I can connect with it in a “hands on” sort of way. That was a small part of what made the work at GW so fun for me, being right in the middle of such rich history.

Little did I know we’d have some right here close by. Wayne told me about a small graveyard sort of off the beaten path here in Spring Hill where the grave of the person who is believed to be the first member of the church of Christ in The Great State (that’s Alabama for those of you who haven’t been keeping score with me :)) is. He came to Tennessee to teach in a school at Leaper’s Fork and his brother was a VP at Nashville Bible School (now Lipscomb University). So, I took a few minutes out of my day and drove to find this graveyard. It wasn’t as hard as Brother Wayne made it sound, it is actually on Beechcroft for those of you familiar with the area. On the right heading toward Carter’s Creek.

How very neat! If you like history that is.

The oldest tombstone I found in that graveyard dated 1811. Amazing, that is two years short of 200 years ago. I found one stone very interesting. It was for John Reaves, born 1856, died 1904 and underneath it read, “GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN” and I thought, yes on the first, no on the second. We erect monuments to give us comfort but they often are not true. Who cares if anyone remembers me, but I do care that the Christ I preach be cared on to the next generation and the next until time is no more.