By
Features Writer / Bristol
Herald Courier
Published: September 10, 2009
David Denton has taken on a task to preach sermons on a mount.
That is, this Sunday, Denton
is swinging open the doors at a church, on a hill, that’s been closed for more
than a year.
As it went, the congregation of the First Baptist Church of Lime Hill dwindled
and died off. Some members later went down the road, Denton said, to another
church in the Lime Hill section of Washington County, Va.
Still, all that has not daunted Denton, 66, who grew up in nearby Benhams and
attended school through the seventh grade at the neighborhood’s Valley
Institute.
“I just passed by here and saw it, and I got a burden for it,” Denton said. “I thought, ‘This is a nice
little church to just be sitting here doing nothing – and nobody interested in
it.’ ”
So Denton
contacted members of the former congregation. Then, this summer, with the help
of his wife, Joan, Denton
has gotten the century-old chapel back in shape.
For nearly 40 years, Denton has preached at
several churches along the North Fork of the Holston
River in Washington
County and along Big Moccasin Creek in
Russell County. About six years ago, he served
as the minister of a small Baptist church in Hickory Tree, Tenn.
“I just take appointments and preach – here, there and yonder,” Denton said. “I’ve been
all over Virginia, Tennessee,
North Carolina.
I’ve driven thousands and thousands of miles and haven’t ever driven any
further than the Great Smoky Mountains.”
Once a welder and mechanic at local Chevrolet dealers, Denton has helped build – and rebuild –
engines, alternators and starters.
“I would take them all the way down and bring them all the way down and build a
new engine out of it,” Denton
said. “And, certainly, Christ does the same thing to a sinner, once he repents
of his sin and trusts in Christ. He changes the inside, and the inside makes
the outside do what it should do.”
In Lime Hill, Denton
wants to help enrich lives from this Sunday forward as he preaches at the
church every week.
“When people come in here,” he said, showing off the chapel, “I want them to
feel free. I don’t want no worked-up thing. But I want them to feel free.”
Even so, Denton
has no idea how many will turn up when he starts this church again on Sunday
morning.
“That’s a faith question,” Denton
said. “I have talked to several, and several have told me they’re coming.”
The preacher smiled.
“The preaching here will be old-fashioned,” Denton promised. “It’ll be hellfire and
brimstone preaching ... Of course, there’s a lot of love mixed in.”
First Baptist Church
of Lime Hill sits on a hill above the intersection of Rich Valley Road (State Route 700) and Lime Hill Road
(State Route 617). Sunday services start on Sept. 13 at 10 a.m., followed by a
sermon at 11 a.m. For more information, call (276) 669-3501.
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