Oakwood launches third Sunday morning service - at night

Oakwood Baptist Church

Senior Pastor Darrell Henry of Oakwood Baptist Church in Chickamauga recently led in the church's establishment of a Sunday night service identical to those held Sunday mornings.

Chickamauga, once referred to as Crawfish Springs, is nestled in the rolling hills of north Georgia just across the state line from Chattanooga, Tenn. The Chickamauga Battlefield, established in 1890, is located just north of town, and is part of the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park, the first and largest in the country.

Chickamauga, rich in history and folklore, was incorporated in 1891 and named after the Tsikamagi Indian tribe of the Cherokee Nation. Over the last century, the city has changed and grown from a population of 95 in 1900 to 2,245 in 2000.

Oakwood Baptist Church in Chickamauga is casting a large influence upon the area and attracting almost as many to its Sunday worship services as are numbered in the official 2000 city census.

In 1991 Oakwood had more than 200 in worship attendance, but today approximately 2,000 attend weekly worship services with a high attendance of 3,129 on Easter Sunday of this year.

Darrell Henry, who has served as senior pastor of the church for fourteen years, is constantly challenging the people of Oakwood and purposefully tries to keep the church focused on the Great Commandment (Mark 12:30-31) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). He recently commented, "Until we do something that only God can do, we really haven't done anything at all."

With the Sunday morning worship attendance coming close to filling the 1,200-seat worship center at both the 9:15 and 10:45 worship hours on Sunday morning, Henry was looking for a solution to the growing pains the church has been experiencing.

He stated, "I thought about adding an earlier service, but most 8:00 or 8:30 a.m. services never really grow beyond a certain point and we were not quite ready to try satellite locations, so we decided to try to duplicate the Sunday morning service on Sunday evening."

Oakwood Baptist Church

Oakwood Baptist Senior Pastor Darrell Henry greets Christie, Brittany and Blake Richardson on the church's first Sunday of its new service schedule Aug. 7.

Although Henry didn't know of any other churches in the area that were attempting what he was proposing, he led the church to have a service on Sunday evening identical to the two morning worship services. He indicated that Oakwood has always been a church with a "whatever it takes attitude" and that he was confident that it would work.

On Aug. 14, the new schedule was launched with 346 present for the first Sunday "morning at night" service with a total of 2,155 for the three services. The church was able to identify well over one hundred visitors in attendance for the "launch day" services.

Henry expressed, "I believe this service will be very successful. Our hope is that someday we will have two Sunday night services, just as we have two Sunday morning services."

Henry gratefully asserts, "What has happened at Oakwood truly is a God-thing."

Most who know about the remarkable growth of the church in recent years would agree.