* THIRTY YEARS EARLIER – 1954

The Hanshue sect came into being in late 1954. Harry Hanshue would say it wasn’t planned or created by man. Many believed it came into being as a sovereign act of God. Its beginnings could be traced to a tent meeting in a field along Banister Street, now the site of the junior high school. Clifton Erickson held revival meetings there in August of 1954. The Harry Hanshue family attended them. Until that time they rarely attended church other than on Christmas and Easter, some years they even skipped those services. Harry couldn’t explain what drew him to the meeting, possibly the carnival atmosphere of the big tent, possibly his curiosity, but definitely there was something different about the ex-truck driver from the Catskills who preached a message about the love of God. Whatever the reason after going one night something drew him back to the tent on subsequent nights. On the fourth night Erickson talked of a tough, hard logger in the Catskills who had given his life to Christ in an earlier crusade and how God had called him to preach the gospel in a packing shed near the camp. No matter how much he fought it Harry, the farmer saw himself in the description as Erickson spoke. In his mind Harry totally rejected the idea but when Erickson gave a call for those who would like to meet Jesus, as he did after every sermon, Harry got up and walked down the aisle. When he got to the front he found his wife and four children were right behind him. The family attended every night until the revival ended. Harry later admitted a team of horses couldn’t have dragged him down that aisle but he was drawn to the front of the tent by a force he didn’t understand at the time. He described it as the power of God.

At first the family tried to find a church but none seemed to fill their needs. All seemed more interested in holding meetings and forming committees than in worshipping God and loving one another. After a few weeks they started having “church” in their home, with Harry “preaching” about what he had learned that week from reading his Bible. Other members of the family read too and sometimes they would tell of the good things they learned. The family began telling people in the neighborhood about this new experience they had with Jesus. As time went on they found others had gone to the same meetings and they too had found no home in a local church. The week before Easter Sunday of 1955 Harry placed three rough, wooden crosses on a hill near the road that ran by his farm and passed the word they would be having a service there at eight AM Sunday. Six local families met, thirty two people in all. The following week they cleaned out a wagon shed on the farm and put in some benches. That Sunday Harry preached his first real sermon. The thirty two who attended the Easter sunrise service were back and another fifty eight joined them, raising the number of people in attendance to ninety. After the message twenty of them came forward to confirm Christ as savior. In less than four months they outgrew the wagon shed and moved to the barn loft. By December the barn loft was full and the sect was still growing. Over two hundred and fifty people were attending every Sunday. Parking was a serious problem with the winter snows and it was obvious that they needed a better place to worship.