Another History of the Newport church of Christ

The following history of the Newport church of Christ appears on pages 108-109 in Newport: The Town With Old Fashioned Courtesy by Jack Dudley (Morehead City, NC: Coastal Heritage Series, 2010), which first appeared during the first annual Newport Heritage Days, June 19-20, 2010.

The founding members of the Church of Christ were Robert Jones (married Lennie Hall Jones) and his brother Benjamin (married to Mary Jane Hall Jones). The Jonese were reared in Newport, but around 1910, they moved to Florida to fish commercially. While in Florida, they met an influential Church of Christ minister, W. A. Cameron. The Joneses were baptized into the faith in 1911. In 1918 the two Jones families moved back to Newport and began holding services in old-time brush arbors and various homes. Mr. Cameron even came to Newport and conducted services. Another minister who came was Tom Burton of Tennessee.

 

When the Newport Consolidated School was established in 1922, the Venolia School building, located about where Roberts Road joins the present-day Nine Mile Road, became available. The Jones purchased the building for $25, and it became the first Church of Christ sanctuary.

The church "treaded water" for about two decades, and then experienced a surge of growth during the WWII Era with as many as 100 attendees and members at the services. Three rooms were added to the tiny building for Sunday School classes.

The minister in the early '50s was Charles Crider, and during his tenure, the present church was built. The sanctuary and six classrooms were constructed with cement blocks and brick veneered. The church was completed in 1954 at a cost of $18,000. It is the oldest bricked church in Newport. By the late '50s, Sunday attendance was up to 200. There are no instruments of music in the Church of Christ.

Posted: June 22, 2010