A Starkville Church gets a fresh start

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)- A local church is getting a fresh start after facing some terrible news late last year.

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After over a century of service, the Antioch church in Starkville faced the possibility of being condemned. The only problem, they didn’t have the finances to fix their building.”

“It was devastating to me because I grew up as a young adult woman in this church,” said Mary Carr.

The Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Starkville will celebrate its 106th anniversary next month and with a great history also comes great wear and tear on the building.

And last October they received some disheartening news.

“Well, I was embarrassed. I was frustrated, you know anger,” said Carr. “All of those mixed emotions came about, but I had to hold my composure and just wait on time and see what was going to be said. I just kept all of my emotions bottled up, and I came back and told the church what the city had told us and informed the body, and we said we will just wait and see what we’re going to do.”

The church had 90 days to bring the building up to city code. The first month was hard, but soon, to paraphrase the scriptures, their cup was running over.

“In those 90 days we had people come forward and said they was willing to help and the ball began to roll,” said Carr.

What started out as a project to fix the church’s roof soon became much more. After the donations were collected, the church was able to redo their sanctuary, office, windows, and more.

“We are excited, we are joyful,” said Carr. “Oh, we’ve just been praising and giving God the glory because if God hadn’t moved his hand, this could have never happened. Because a lot of times we give, we say, well the people, but God had to move on the people’s hearts for them to even to help.”

The full renovations were completed last month with the church being able to use their sanctuary for the first time on Mother’s Day.

“We’ve just been grateful,” said Carr.

Multiple churches and businesses helped with the project including “Carpenters for Christ” and “Nail Benders.”