Mormons break ground on first Centerton meetinghouse
Posted on Sunday, March 30, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/News/60210/
CENTERTON — A musical prayer erupted, sung with a traditional hymn melody. About 50 people in unison praising Jesus Christ. A few sang in harmony — fewer did so intentionally. Not uncommon in what some call the buckle of the Bible Belt.
But this was different.
It was Saturday morning, about 11 a. m., when most churches still have 24 hours before services begin.
And there was no building, no church, tabernacle or temple, just the idea of where it would someday stand.
And there were no Christians, not in the traditional sense of the word. Sure, the makeshift choir was singing in Jesus’ name, but they don’t call themselves Christians. They call themselves Latterday Saints.
And it was in a rain-filled, wind-blown, empty field in Centerton that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered to pray and give thanks for the meetinghouse that would one day stand in that spot, in a five-acre field at the corner of Gamble and Seba roads.
“ I consider this sacred soil that we’re standing on today, because we will gather here to worship Heavenly Father, ” said Bishop Matthew Isabell, the leader of the Centerton ward. “ I know what we’re doing is the work of God. ”
Currently the Centerton ward, which other churches might call a congregation, meets at the Bentonville meetinghouse, along with three other wards. That building welcomes 1, 100 parishioners each Sunday, Isabell said, including 300 from Centerton alone.
The Centerton meetinghouse, Isabell said, will be built to hold 900 to 1, 000 people each week, representing three wards, the expected number for a Latter-day Saints meetinghouse.
Bishop Jerry Abrams remembered the early days, about 35 years ago, when he could count the number of Bentonville Mormons on one hand: There were three of them. He and his family tripled that total.
Eventually, the membership grew enough for the church to rent a building in Siloam Springs. Later, it expanded east.
The church expands by about one ward, about 300 members, every two years, Isabell said. Abrams said that growth stems from the same place as much of northwest Arkansas’ growth: Wal-Mart.
From Bentonville, Wal-Mart recruits a large number of employees from Brigham Young University, a Mormon school located in Provo, Utah. He said the company also frequently employs Mormons following their missionary work, which often requires they learn a foreign language and live in another country for two years.
Regardless of how they got to Centerton, the church members know what they will do there, even singing it in their closing hymn Saturday:
“ Because I have been blessed by thy great love, dear Lord, I’ll share thy love again, according to thy word. ”