CORDELE, Ga. – Pastor Terry Ryan is crediting the Lord with putting out one fire and starting another at Penia Baptist Church in a sparsely populated community outside Cordele, a farming town that bills itself as the watermelon capital of the world.
One fire was started by an unattended candle, the other, a revival fire, by a move of God that has doubled the size of the congregation and fueled a major increase in baptisms.
The congregation will gather in a restored sanctuary on Sunday morning for the first time since the fire late last year. It will be a celebration of what the Lord did in preventing the church from burning down.
“I just know God stopped that fire,” Ryan said. “There was no other reason for it go out.”
The flame from an Advent candle had charred the stand it sat on and burned a 3 ½-foot swath of carpet in the nearly 200-year-old church. Only a thin piece of plywood separated the fire from aged lumber that could have served as tinder for a major blaze.
Heat from the fire scorched the front of a baby grand piano. The entire sanctuary had heavy smoke damage that has taken two months to rectify.
But when firefighters arrived, Ryan said, they had nothing to do. The fire was out. The area that had burned was no longer even hot to the touch.
“It was just an amazing sight to see, especially when you consider the possibilities of what could have happened,” Ryan said. “If the fire had gotten into the original flooring, that old wood would have gone up like crazy.”
Ryan said some people might try to explain away the miracle that saved the church building by calling it a coincidence that the fire went out. He, however, doesn’t buy that.
“There was no reason for the fire to go out, but it did,” Ryan said. “God showed up and put the fire out.”
The church, thanks to their insurer, has spent more than $200,000 on remediating the smoke damage. Soundboards and speakers had to be cleaned, as did worship instruments, computers, electronic equipment, and choir and baptistry robes. The carpet was replaced, and walls were cleaned, primed, and painted. The pews and air conditioning system had been saturated with smelly smoke and had to be restored.
“God has given us another opportunity to worship Him in this sanctuary,” Ryan said. “He protected His house.”
Chris Hewitt, a deacon and praise team member, said revival arrived at Penia along with Ryan in 2019.
Since then, the church has baptized more than 80 new believers, an even more remarkable feat considering two of those years were during the COVID-19 pandemic when many people avoided mass gatherings, including church services.
“I think the fire was a response by the enemy to stop the revival, but it has fueled it,” Ryan said.
In the past five months, the church has baptized 12 new believers.
“It’s amazing to see God working the way He is,” Hewitt said. “We had a meeting after the fire, and we talked about how we expected a drop in attendance when we moved out of the sanctuary and into the social hall. It’s amazing how wrong our projections were. We continued to grow even through that.”
Sunday morning attendance has grown from an average of just over 100 in 2019 to more than 200. The high attendance mark for Ryan’s tenure came last Easter when 269 people showed up. On January 29, attendance was 235.
“I think we’re seeing revival begin in our community,” Ryan said. “I see God’s hand in all of this.”
Hewitt said the Lord has turned the fire into a blessing for the church.
“It allowed us to take a step back and kind of appreciate the sanctuary as a holy place, as holy ground,” he said.
