When William E. “Willie” Wells moved his family to Greenville, Florida, it was a period of construction of fine homes and hotels. Willie had worked with lumber mills in Valdosta, Georgia, and he envisioned opportunities in North Florida timber forests and potential lumber contracts with local and distant builders. Soon he set up his equipment, and he was in business. By 1905 Willie had built a home for his growing family.

     For about fifteen years, life was good as the busy Wells family enjoyed a degree of prosperity and community life, but a cloud was threatening their contentment. The year was 1921, and Willie’s newspaper tribute to his wife Martha “Mattie” set his circumstances in clear view.

     From the Madison Enterprise Recorder (1921) came these words: “Sacred is the memory of my wife Mattie A. Wells, who departed this life April 22, 1921.”

     The words of Mattie’s death notice continued with Willie’s lament over the circumstances in which he had placed his family after leaving Valdosta fifteen years before her death. His “sweet-spirited, free-hearted and industrious wife” had learned God’s Will and was baptized before leaving Georgia. She had become a Christian. His grief was compounded by his memory of transplanting his family to a distant place where Bible study and worship services were neglected. The scriptures state that early Christians met on the first day of the week and remembered Jesus’ death by sharing the Lord’s Supper. In later correspondence with his daughter, Willie expressed regrets as he looked back over his life. He remarked that he had been too busy to provide his family spiritual training while he sought to attend to other matters.

     As a widowed father of nine children, Willie took steps to begin gathering his family on Sundays to study Bible lessons and to observe the Lord’s supper. No doubt, his Valdosta family and associates came for weekend visits and supported the family in that worthwhile effort, and so passed another fifteen years with rural home worship services.

     In 1936, Willie persuaded Irven Lee, a preacher who had recently moved to Valdosta, to help him establish a congregation in the town of Greenville. The two men spent weekends working their plan which required making street contacts on Saturdays. Farmers and their wives customarily shopped on Saturday afternoons, and Willie knew many of them. He introduced his acquaintances to the visiting preacher. Many conversations began at that point and led to Bible discussions and requests for answers to various questions. Irven Lee’s calm patience won the hearts of many – so many that it was necessary for the sidewalk crowd to move across the railroad tracks to the hardware storefront where the preacher spoke to them from the porch and considered their comments and questions.

     Men and women, who were concerned about their past lives, asked what they should do. They were told to do as Peter advised in Acts 2:38, “Repent and be baptized.” Some objections were raised: “The Bible says, ‘Believe and you’ll be saved.’” The kind preacher answered quibbles calmly, “Yes, but we must consider all the components that fulfill God’s requirement for forgiveness.”

     The hardware storefront was the setting as numerous town folks, who had turned from their weekly shopping, became convicted of their need to obey the Lord. Baptisms were immediate, and two well-known lakes – Lake Logan and Cherry Lake – served that purpose.

     The Greenville church was growing and needed a place to meet. Soon a frame building was constructed on Haffye Street. The church met there for several decades until the building was moved west of town on U.S. Highway 90.

     The church in Greenville is known as the Greenville church of Christ. Many will agree that it’s different from its neighboring religious groups. Simply stated, faithful members of the church believe it’s important to ensure their faith and actions harmonize with New Testament teaching.

     At his wife’s death in 1921, W. E. Wells awakened to his need to put the Lord first. That conviction led to family Bible studies and worship that resulted in the establishment of the church of Christ in Greenville, Florida, 100 years ago.

           -- Martha B. Sutherland, granddaughter