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The Beginning
The
history of our church is an interesting puzzle with a few missing
pieces. We do know it was the first Pentecostal church in the
Goodsprings/Gorgas, Alabama area. The Goodsprings Full Gospel Church
began as Rev. S. A. Ganey (pictured) held brush arbor and home prayer
meetings in the community in the early 1940’s. At the time, Bro. Ganey
was the General Overseer of the Original Church of God, a Pentecostal
organization founded in 1939 and based in Carbon Hill, Alabama. In 1953
the organization was renamed The Full Gospel Church of God, Inc. In the
beginning the Goodsprings Church had no building of its own but thrived
in home prayer meetings. Officially, we can document that the
Goodsprings Full Gospel Church was organized with Rev. J. F. Frasure on
August 6th, 1944, with approximately 13 men and 31 women members. Our
church remained in the Full Gospel Church of God until around 1989 when
it became independent, leaving on good terms and in good standing,
continuing to fellowship with many of the ministers and churches in the
organization.
The Original Church Building
In 1945 a plot of land was purchase by the church from Joe & Lilian
Baker for $175.00 as the future home of the congregation. Soon
thereafter a building was erected as the first sanctuary. The following
picture is the only photo we can locate of the outside of the original
church building. Notice the brick siding (tar paper with a brick
pattern). This was a small, simple wooden structure set up on cinder
blocks. Pictured is a group of young people who were active in the
church at that time.
This is a photo of New Bethany Full Gospel Church of God from the same time frame located in Dogtown, Alabama. The original Goodsprings Church building looked somewhat similar to this, except it had brick siding and did not have a steeple