Picture a tidy little church, sharing its grounds with cemetery inhabitants of a great pandemic. It’s an apt description of the church in Alto, Georgia, as it existed a hundred years ago, known as Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church.
While the cemetery doesn’t meet the requirements for listing as a Habersham County Historic Resource, its memorials date back to 1895. A portion of the 1-acre site is restricted from use, so as not to disturb the unnamed victims of the 1918 influenza pandemic interred in the field.
Today, the faithful who attend services at this location, with appropriate coronavirus social distancing, worship at St. Thomas the Apostle Anglican Church. This spring, the church welcomed Father Paul Beutell as the new vicar. Fr. Paul comes from St. Philip’s Anglican Church in Blacksburg, Virginia, where he served in the role of assistant priest. Although originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Fr. Paul and his family have resided in Virginia since 2009. Cyndi, his wife of 32 years, will be joining him in Georgia in the near future; their three sons are grown, so they won’t be moving to Georgia. For the moment, Fr. Paul lives in Baldwin, Georgia, with his canine companion, Katee.
The Anglican to Episcopalian spectrum is broad, ranging from catholic (in the ‘universal’ sense) to relatively liberal. The congregation at St. Thomas the Apostle conforms to the conservative tradition, with emphasis on Scripture and the precepts of the apostolic church. Father Paul explains: “Anglo-Catholicism is both Protestant and Catholic. It’s Protestant in that it, along with much of Western Europe in the 16th century, protested against certain errors of doctrine and practice prevalent in the Roman Catholic Church. It’s also Protestant in that it restored Scripture as the primary source for faith and practice. Yet, it is fully Catholic in that it maintained the three-fold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons; emphasis on Sacramental grace (keeping all seven sacraments); and a mass for worship.”
The Anglican Mass is based upon the historic lineage of the Book of Common Prayer, the first edition of which was the genius of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer issued in 1549. The official Prayer Book used by Anglo-Catholics in the Continuing Church is the 1928 American. The mass, itself, is a form of liturgy, or public prayer, that relies on lay participation.
According to Fr. Paul, “The Prayer Book is more than something we ‘use’ for public worship! It teaches us how to worship. It provides more than forms for prayer. It teaches us how to pray. The Anglo-Catholic understanding is the individual is there to serve the Church, the Body of Christ. We are discipleship-oriented rather than seeker-oriented. Over the past 30 years, many Protestant churches have focused on making church more interesting for congregants, using secular business and marketing models to grow their numbers over making disciples.”
In other words, St. Thomas the Apostle could never be called a “mega-church.” Records maintained by the Methodist Church explain that the historical Pleasant Grove was never “a strong church, but it has stood these many years as a place where those who so desired could find God as a personal savior.” Fr. Paul has assured the congregation that this is one tradition that won’t change––just as those laid to rest in the cemetery will continue to be buried with the graves facing east, in anticipation of the second coming of Christ.
Sharon Fisher is a member of St. Thomas the Apostle Anglican Church and loves digging into church history.
