Flagg Chapel Baptist Church celebrates 185 years

Published 4:00 pm Saturday, February 21, 2015

Anyone who has looked into the history of Milledgeville has heard about Flagg Chapel Baptist Church, one of the oldest churches in the city.

The church will celebrate the 185th anniversary of its founding this Sunday, in 1830, by Wilkes Flagg.

“What we do, it’s not anything elaborate,” said the Rev. Omer Reid, the 32nd and current pastor of the church. “We have a regular anniversary sermon and a fellowship together. Service is at 11 o’clock.”

Reid said the church will have a memorial service for older members who have passed on while the rest will be a regular service.

According to church record, Dr. Reid has served as lead pastor of the church for 22 years, second only to Wilkes Flagg himself, who served as pastor for 28 years. Flagg served as a deacon when the church was founded until he became pastor in 1845. He was ordained as a preacher in 1866.

Flagg attended First Baptist Church of Milledgeville with many other members of the community, including whites, who sat in the pews, and slaves and free blacks, who sat in the balcony. During one Sunday service, Flagg left the balcony and asked to become a member. Because equal rights were unheard of, Flagg was denied membership by the pastor.

Flagg then led all of the black attendees of the church out, and together, they held their own church services.

Although started in 1830, church records indicate the first Flagg Chapel was built in 1864 on the corner of Franklin and Clark streets, the same site as the present church. The spot was selected by the church’s first pastor, Milus Wilburn, Flagg and a few other leaders and attendees.

Flagg had built his home and blacksmith shop on the intersection of those streets, and later, he deeded a portion of that land to the church’s Board of Trustees to build the church.

Flagg died Nov. 15, 1878, and was buried on church property. When his wife, Lavinia Flagg, passed away in 1901, she was buried beside him. Both graves can be seen at Flagg Chapel.

According to church records, Flagg Chapel has only closed twice during its 185 years of existence: once in 1909 due to city laws and a second time in 1973 when the church was destroyed by a fire during a renovation.

There is no indication in The Union-Recorder records from the period that the church was closed due to city laws. However, a May 3, 1910 article with the headline “Discord Prevails at Flagg’s Chapel” states that the Board of Deacons and then-pastor, the Rev. A.W. Hawkins were involved in a dispute about church leadership.

According to several articles from 1910, Hawkins refused to step down from the church’s leadership while several deacons were determined to remove Hawkins.

Police were involved to break up a fight inside the church, and the case went into the court system. A restraining order was filed against Joe Wiggins, the leader of the deacons who desired to fire Hawkins, to prevent him from being involved in church business, but a judge later dissolved the order.

According to a Page 2 article in the Aug. 23, 1910, edition of The Union-Recorder, “The row at Flagg’s Baptist church has at least been settled. The Board of Deacons won out, and Rev. W.A. Hawkins has resigned. The church has not yet called a new preacher.”

After the fire of 1973, church records indicate the church was rebuilt on the same site and reopened Jan. 1, 1976. Unfortunately, there is no mention of Flagg Chapel reopening in the 1976 editions of The Union-Recorder, and regular bound editions in the offices from prior to 1976 have been lost over time.

From 1973 to 1976, members of Flagg Chapel attended services at Ebenezer Seventh Day Adventist Church, which opened its doors and welcomed Flagg Chapel’s attendees to use its facilities.

Reid is from Hancock County but did not attend Flagg Chapel while growing up. He also said he never intended to have a career in the ministry.

“I was actually a real estate appraiser and night club owner,” Reid said. “God called me; I left the night club game. It was honestly a call of God, so I accepted the call. I didn’t have any choice in this matter; it was very distinct.”

Reid has been a pastor for 32 years, and he first pastored three other, smaller churches — two in Hancock County and one in Warren County.

“I was a little country preacher running all over the place,” Reid said.

Reid said he did a service for the Rev. Raymond Buford Jr., and several years later when Buford’s health started failing, he performed another service. When Buford left the leadership of the church, Reid was asked to step in. He has been at Flagg Chapel ever since.

“I ended up doing something I really love. I’ve been a ministry man for 32 years. I’ve fallen in love with it,” Reid said.

Since Reid took over pastorship of the church in 1993, at which point the church was little more than a sanctuary, the church has undergone extensive renovations, adding stained-glass windows, a choir loft, gymnasium, classrooms and several other features.

The church now owns the property of the original location and a large tract of land behind the church on Clark Street. The portion of Clark Street the church sits on has fittingly been renamed Flagg Chapel Lane.

The church has also grown in membership.

“We’ve probably got 50-plus members,” Reid said. “On a regular Sunday, we get around 250 to 300 people, somewhere around that neighborhood. Most of our members show up (at least) once a month.”

Reid said that because members are very generous in their tithes, the church is able to afford upgrades and improvements, such as the sound system.

The church’s 185th anniversary celebration will be held starting with regular church services at 11 a.m. Members and guests will then have a fellowship together in the dining hall in which lunch is to be served. Everyone in the community is invited to attend services and join in afterward for the meal.

“We welcome the entire community,” Reid said. “There’ll be plenty of everything. We’ve never run out of food with an extra 100 folks show up. (This) is a community affair.”