FOLEY, Ala. — Note: In this, The Foley Onlooker’s 100th year, we will from time to time write stories designated as “Centennial” stories. These will be on subjects that have continued to impact the citizens of this area over the course of this newspaper’s long history.

The Sept. 11, 1924, issue of The Onlooker billed it as the largest tent meeting ever held in the county. The Rev. James M. “Jimmie” Smith of Hattiesburg, Miss., was bringing not only his pianist and singer, but a tent that would seat 2,500 people.

The tent meeting in Robertsdale was to start on Sept. 21 and go to Oct. 12, two services each day.

“The Business Men’s Association of Robertsdale pledged their moral and financial support to the meetings and they invite you to attend,” The Onlooker front page article said of the tent meeting.

The subject of things spiritual would continue to provide a great deal of front page copy for The Onlooker long after that particular tent was folded in 1924. A random check of Onlooker issues through the years finds articles multiplied many times over like the following ones randomly selected from papers published during 1962:

Bible travelogues and films in “Dramatic Cinemascope” at First Baptist Church, Foley; missionaries speaking; Bible camps; ministers coming to and leaving from pastorates; Bible study; sign language classes at First Baptist, Silverhill; soil stewardship at Bethel Baptist Church; a picture of a Catholic high mass; county-wide youth revival at the Coliseum; Baldwin Baptist Pastor’s and Layman’s Retreat; and a sermon on prophecy, “Russia in prophecy and will they rule the world,” to be delivered at Bon Secour Methodist Church.

Besides the religious subject matter on front pages of The Onlooker of old, in the late 1950s and early 1960s publisher and editor Sparky Howell carried his thought for the day on the editorial page along with a notable quote. The thought was always a scripture verse or two and the notable quote was always on the subject of spirituality.

The Foley Onlooker today typically carries a religion page and a church directory, the latter sponsored by area businesses. The paper continues to publish church announcements and events, submitted or otherwise.

But has the religious climate in Baldwin County changed in the hundred years since The Onlooker published its first paper Nov. 8, 1907?

For the most part the answer appears to be yes.

Dr. Larry Patterson is director of missions for Baldwin Baptist Association, a fellowship consisting of 59 churches with approximately 30,000 members. Patterson believes there is much that hasn’t changed in the county in the past hundred years where spirituality is concerned.

For example, he believes people pray as much today as they did a hundred years ago.

“I think people are still as interested in spiritual matters as they have been,” he said, and as proof cites the findings of The Barna Group of Ventura, Calif., an organization that does research and surveying for Christian ministries.

That does not mean, however, that the religious landscape in Baldwin County hasn’t changed somewhat.

“The shift has been that there’s not so much of an interest in church involvement as there used to be, but there’s still a lot of spiritual emphasis,” Patterson said.

Where change is concerned, he notes the presence of more “home” churches today, churches where four or five families meet together.

For another, there is the fact that Sunday night services are not as well attended as they were 50 years ago. Some churches are doing away with Sunday night services altogether, Patterson said.

The “popular model” now, according to Patterson, is the big meeting on Sunday morning, no service on Sunday night, and maybe a mid-week service, although Patterson points out that traditional Wednesday night services in Baptist churches continue to suffer from a lack of attendance.

One church event conspicuously missing today that was a mainstay in The Onlooker of days gone by is the announcement of revival services. There are “almost none,” said Patterson of revival services in present day Baptist churches.

‘PROTRACTED’

MEETINGS

When Patterson came to Baldwin County seven years ago, he could visit all 59 Southern Baptist churches annually by attending the revival services the churches held. Today, that has changed.

“We only have three or four, maybe five of the 59, that still have an annual revival,” Patterson said.

Compare that to 50 years ago when Baptist churches typically had Spring and Fall revival services. ( In 1960, there were 36 Southern Baptist churches in the county with a total membership of less than 8,000.) Those were called “protracted” meetings back then because they could last two to three weeks, Patterson said. Today, one-day and four-day revival services are more the norm.

“I don’t know of a Southern Baptist church that’s had a week revival since I’ve been here,” the director of missions said.

This year he estimates that maybe five churches in Baldwin Baptist Association will hold four-day revival services.

“Formalized religion is something people have a harder time grasping today,” said the Rev. Paul Zoghby, pastor of St. Margaret Queen of Scotland Catholic Church in Foley, a church founded one year before The Onlooker printed its first newspaper. Yet, he agrees with Patterson that people pray as much today as they did a hundred years ago.

“People are naturally spiritually-minded, but it’s harder today because we have so many things that keep us from attaching ourselves to God,” Zoghby said.

In that regard, Zoghby notes that fewer Catholics and Protestants are going to church on Sunday today than was true in years past. At St. Margaret, however, the membership is currently involved in raising a new $4.5 million church building at 601 W. Laurel Ave. The new church will seat 700 to 750 as opposed to the present church, built in 1951, which seats 200 to 225.

Back in March, Zoghby noted that St. Margaret has, on average, added 65 families per year for the last four years.

“Our parish tends to be traditional in the way we celebrate a mass,” Zoghby said, noting St. Margaret hasn’t consciously moved toward a more contemporary form of worship. Yet, he notes the celebrating of mass in the vernacular, something that occurred in the Roman Catholic Church approximately 40 years ago, has been a watershed event for the church.

Even at that, Zoghby’s description of the architectural design of the new St. Margaret church bespeaks the fellowship’s adherence to more traditional worship: “country Gothic.”

The Rev. Paul Wilde of New Life in Christ church in Foley has been in the area since 1985. He calls it “such a change” that has occurred in religious life in the last few years.

“Fundamentalism is almost a thing of the past,” he said, then quoted a verse from St. Paul’s letters to Timothy in the New Testament: “in the last days perilous times will come.”

Wilde said a lot of “Dale Carnegie stuff” is being preached from pulpits today; stuff about self-improvement. If the cross is preached, however, churches tend to shrink in attendance since that confronts people with their sins, he said, something most don’t want to hear.

“There are some people who still want to hear the truth. They want to be sure heaven is their home,” Wilde said.

VIDEO GAMES

IN CHURCH

On the subject of prayer and spirituality, Wilde does not believe either are practiced today the way they once were. For one thing, people are just too busy and distracted by what he calls the “cares of the world.”

People have been “sucked into easy credit” and now families have to work two jobs to make ends meet. And people’s minds are not their own anymore, Wilde said, what with TV, computers, video games and such “sucking the spirit out of people.” He has seen children playing video games in church.

“Baldwin County used to have its own identity,” Wilde said, but now with the county’s growth and expansion people are working themselves to death. Going to church is just more work, according to Wilde.

To help counter that, New Life in Christ serves what Wilde describes as a “full breakfast” on Sunday morning so families can get up and come to church with some of the pressure off. Likewise, on Wednesday night a “huge buffet” is served so members can come to church straight from work.

“They come in and collapse almost,” Wilde said. Following the meal, programs for kids of all ages are held.

Sunday night? “I can’t get them back on Sunday night,” said Wilde, noting the church is typically only a third full.

Foley United Methodist Church is over a hundred years old.

“Strangely enough, our traditional worship service at 11 a.m. isn’t all that different from a hundred years ago,” said Dr. Lance Moore, FUMC’s minister.

But Moore notes in the last 10 years or so a movement has been afoot to “radically change worship,” for one to a more informal style. The church has recently started holding a contemporary worship service at 8:30 a.m. on Sundays.

“We always try to balance being faithful to our tradition while being relevant to what’s happening today,” said Moore in speaking of the contemporary service.

And what of spirituality in 2008? “It’s hard to judge the spiritual level of any person but there’s no questioning that a hundred years ago the church was the center of social life for most people,” Moore said.

For people who believe that should be the case, it is “frustrating” today, he said.

Patterson, the director of missions for Baldwin Baptist Association, notes it’s also difficult to get ministers together in this day and time. For example, the Association’s executive committee, which handles business when the Association isn’t in session, only meets three times a year now.

The Association’s Annual Meeting, which used to be held over two days and several sessions, is today a one-day event held in two sessions, Patterson said.

GETTING TOGETHER A SOFTBALL TEAM

Most of the ministers interviewed believe that the spirit of cooperation and understanding between church denominations and groups have improved.

“The ability to get along is better than it was a hundred years ago,” said Zoghby.

Wilde, whose church is interdenominational, said there are a lot of good churches out there.

“Churches are much more apt to work together,” Patterson said. “There was a time when we had this ‘us-only’ attitude. We’re not so dogmatic about it (today).”

The Rev. Steve Pankey, assistant priest at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Foley, said the ecumenical spirit is better in some circles and not so much so in others. He feels that while some of the mainline liberal churches get along with each other, and while some of the conservative churches “play well with one another,” the spirit of cooperation and fellowship between the two larger groups leaves something to be desired.

For what he terms either “good or ill,” Moore said people seem to be less concerned today with doctrinal differences. Yet, less time might be invested in ecumenism due to hectic church schedules.

“That’s also a function of increased population,” Moore said, noting years ago three or four churches might have to come together just to field a softball team.

The Rev. Don Young of Genesis Church in Foley said cooperation between church groups was actually better in South Baldwin in the 1990s than today. Church buildings are springing up everywhere and there are less Christians to fill them, so churches are “more protective” today, he said.

“Churches are trying to survive,” said Young, who notes a certain “caution” in ecumenism locally.

PLURALISTIC

COMMUNITY

In speaking of Baldwin County in 2008, both Young and Pankey used the word “pluralistic.”

“It’s a different kind of culture today. The challenge is to meet the needs of people where they are,” said Young, noting you can’t stereotype church anymore.

Genesis Church, which is out of a Christian and Missionary Alliance background, has what Young calls a “blended, contemporary” worship service with a full band.

“We’re loud,” said Young with a laugh.

Pankey, the Episcopalian, said St. Paul’s uses the 1979 Episcopal prayerbook and, while the church choir does more contemporary music than once was true, the hymns are traditional.

People are reaching out for God in various ways, Pankey said.

“Perhaps prayer in its understood (traditional) form doesn’t happen quite as often,” he said.

Patterson can attest to the fact things have changed in Baldwin County in the past 50 years if not 100.

The migrant ministry which has been conducted by Southern Baptist churches for approximately 50 years once ministered to a thousand or more migrants annually through the efforts of 25 or more Baptist churches. Now, three or four churches conduct the ministry that reaches what Patterson calls 25 or 30 “actual” migrants each year.

On the other hand, Baldwin Baptist Association has a full-time Director of Resort Ministries today. With the help of churches inside the county and outside, Nathan Diehl conducts ministry at condos, RV parks and any and everywhere the tourists are. During the winter months the ministry is directed to snowbirds.

Pankey calls the City of Foley the “bridge between the beach and the Old South” where the church, in his words, is trying to learn to speak two languages. One language is that of the retirees who moved here lock, stock and barrel from all over the U.S. The other language is that of families who have been here forever and who are watching their world change before their eyes.

“They both have something to say,” Pankey said.