WILKINSON — It is a new sentiment that a church is more than just a building. On Saturday, there will be a festival to celebrate that.

A homecoming is set for noon to 4 p.m. at the By His Grace Ministry church at 9886 N. Nashville Road in nrothern Hancock County.

The ministry itself has been in business for a year. The building it occupies? More than a century.

Pastor Susan Jones said that the previous tenant, Maple Grove Community Church, had been losing parishioners for a while, mostly through relocation or death.

“They had tried to keep it going, but there just weren’t enough people,“ Jones said. “They were going to let us use it for Bible study. We felt like the Lord wanted us to try to build it back up. We talked to them about it, and they were OK with that.”

Jones‘ friend and parishioner, Georgi Goen, explains further.

“There were about five or six of us girls, now it’s about 14, who wanted a place where we could have prayer meeting,“ Goen said. “And we didn’t want to drive all the way to Charlottesville (the site of the original By His Grace Ministry church), because a lot of us are from the Anderson, Pendleton area.

“This little church out here in the country was empty, and so Sue asked the people, ‘Could we just have prayer meeting in there?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, that would be great!’”

A church first occupied the property in 1891. The United Brethren Church in Christ opened for worship then, with 24 charter members. The building was erected in 1894, and yet, in 1902, a tornado laid waste to it.

According to church history, the only things left were the organ, pulpit and Bible, which had been blown open to Psalms 103:16, which reads: “For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.“

A new church building was quickly assembled by 1903, and it has stood since, acquired by the Maple Grove Community Church since 1968.

In His Ministry, which Jones describes as a charismatic Christian church, assumed the deed in October 2008. Since then, much work has been done, including new windows, paint and other renovations.

“We’re in the process of getting the bell outside fixed,“ Jones said. “There’s a lot of remodeling. And we haven’t even started on the inside. It’s just a little old country church.”

The numbers have held consistently in the congregation, which Jones describes as interdenominational but leaning toward Pentecostal. “But we love all churches, so we don't care about that,“ she says.