Eddis Mitchell says part of the appeal of Friendship Missionary Baptist Church is the spirit of the people there — and it’s consistent with the church’s name.
Visitors consistently say that they get a good reception from the members and ushers, says Mitchell, a trustee at Friendship.
“Everybody’s welcoming,” she said. “When you walk through our doors, everybody’s friendly. We always live up to our name of Friendship.”
For more than a century, Friendship has provided a place to worship and serve. Like most other churches, it has faced challenges in recent years, especially from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic — but its leaders say they are working to bring more people in.
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Friendship was formed in 1916 by 26 former member of Strangers’ Home M.B. Church. Friendship’s first pastor was the Rev. Henry Gatewood. They met in a three-room dwelling in which the partitions had been removed, and for a time, services were held under a “brush arbor” — branches or brush held up by poles. Gatewood, who served until 1920, established Sunday school and a Missionary Society, and the church had an elected secretary, a Deacon Board and a Mother Board.
After short terms by the next two pastors, Elijah Washington was elected to the post in 1921. Under his leadership, a new building was constructed, and a choir, an Usher Board, a Pastor’s Aide Club and other organizations were established. Washington was followed by the Rev. W.L. Terrell and then the Rev. J.H. Thompkin. Under Thompkin, who was elected in 1936, the church was renovated, a baptismal pool was added, and some auxiliary groups were formed.
More improvements followed during the tenure of the Rev. R.L. Washington, who was elected in 1955. Those included new pews, an organ, central heating and a reconstructed baptismal pool.
Ida Potlow, 93, a native of Tallahatchie County, married in 1954 and moved to Greenwood in 1957. She joined Friendship that year, during Washington’s tenure.
“I was living right across Main Street, and I was going to join Strangers’ Home,” she said. “But my husband came to church first and joined this church, so I came and followed him. And I’ve been here ever since. ... I thought it was a very nice church. The pastors were nice, and the people here were very friendly, so I had no problem with any of them — got along real well.”
The members there still work together well, with no anger or jealousy, said Potlow, who has been active in a number of groups in her many years at Friendship, including the choir, the Missionary Society and other ministries. She is now a trustee deaconess.
Friendship also played a role in the Civil Rights Movement, when Greenwood was a hotbed of activism. It was one of only a few local churches that opened its doors to civil rights groups for meetings, said the current pastor, Dr. Valmadge Towner. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee held meetings there as well as at First Christian Church and the Elks Hall.
Dr. Valmadge Towner, who has been pastor since 2006, says of his congregation, “These people saved my life.” (By Johnny Jennings, Copyright 2024 Emmerich Newspapers, Inc.)
Friendship risked retaliation and violence by doing this, and its members risked losing their jobs or being victims of violence themselves. But “this church was always at the forefront of doing things that were uncomfortable, so to speak,” Towner said.
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Under B.T. Moore, who was elected pastor in 1965, Friendship added air conditioning and Young Adult Choir. More remodeling followed under his successor, the Rev. Dr. H.C. Cherry, and new pews were added. That was also when Friendship started its radio ministry. Cherry was followed by F. Tyrone Boseman, William H. McGee and Henderson Fields.
Willie Hayes joined the church in 1981, moving from Traveler’s Rest M.B. Church. “I found that Friendship was a fabulous place to be,” he said.
Hayes was always active in Sunday school, serving as superintendent for a time, in addition to other laymen’s groups. He was ordained as a deacon around 1986. “Just about anything that came up, I was involved in it,” he said.
Hayes said a deacon is a “helper to the pastor” who also serves at the table of the Lord and the table of the poor. With that goal in mind, he’s still glad to lend a hand at the church today.
“You do something long enough, it becomes a part of you,” he said. “I enjoy coming to church each Sunday. More times than not, I’m the first or second person here. I’m the one who opens doors on a lot of occasions to let people in.”
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Henderson Fields became Friendship’s pastor in 1996. Realizing the church needed more space for worship because of its growth, he oversaw the addition of a new 400-seat sanctuary, which opened in 2002. The former sanctuary space is now occupied by the fellowship hall.
Former Greenwood Fire Chief Larry Griggs played a big part in the sanctuary addition.
He had joined Friendship in 1997 along with his wife, their 3-year-old daughter and his father-in-law. He came from Payne Chapel M.B. Church in Quito, and his wife came from St. Luke Church of God in Christ.
They looked at several churches in Greenville and Greenwood and then settled on Friendship, largely because of Fields. Griggs said the pastor was a pleasant man and a good preacher who became like an older brother to him, and his family received a warm welcome from others, too. He recalled that 17 people joined the church the day his family did.
Conversations about a new sanctuary began when he was still working at the Greenwood Fire Department, and once a plan emerged, he created a mechanical drawing of what the building would look like, and blueprints were made. He worked with the architects and then oversaw the purchase of the property and the construction itself, from the bricks to the pews and carpeting. Work on the sanctuary started in 1999, and services were held there beginning in January 2002.
Griggs said he wanted to carry out Fields’ wishes.
“I promised him that I would just do whatever I could to kind of help maintain what he dreamed of this becoming,” he said. “And that’s mostly what I do.”
From left, Larry Griggs, Eddis Mitchell, Ida Potlow and Willie Hayes are among the leaders who keep Friendship Missionary Baptist Church going. (By Johnny Jennings, Copyright 2024 Emmerich Newspapers, Inc.)
Griggs teaches Sunday school, handles the sound and video for services and serves as vice chairman of the trustee board and vice chair of the deacon board, in addition to being the unofficial comptroller. On top of all that, he stays busy with maintenance work.
Sitting in the sanctuary, he said, “This part here, I know everything about it” — including the electrical system, the plumbing, the air conditioning, the baptismal pool and all the rest. He checks on everything regularly, for no pay. He has more time for this work now that he’s retired, but he said he hopes someone younger will be able to take over.
“It’s almost like a full-time job, just coming up here, keeping it going,” he said.
But, having encountered many needy people over the years working for the Fire Department and Greenwood Utilities — and paid utility bills for some of them — he is willing to serve.
“Church has been my life my entire life,” he said. “And this has just been an extension of what I was reared doing. ... Church is part of who I am.”
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Towner, 54, who is from Marks, comes from a family with several ministers, including his father and grandfather and an uncle.
In 2005, he was asked to substitute at a service for Fields, a family friend, who had throat problems. Towner said he was “scared to death” to preach to a church much larger than the ones he had attended — plus that service included communion. “I had never done communion by myself, so I’m really petrified,” he recalled.
But he spoke there twice, and Fields also had a long conversation with him about Fields’ history there and his plans for the future, including improvements to the parking lot, fencing and other things for which they had raised money.
Towner now refers to that conversation as “the last supper,” because Fields died five weeks later.
Towner didn’t think he would get the job because he was still in seminary and focused on his studies. But he served as lead minister until the leaders started a search. After evaluating several candidates, they settled on him as Friendship’s 10th pastor, and he started work in 2006.
Towner earned degrees in math, computer science and educational leadership in addition to a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary. He taught math at the high school and community college levels and was a middle school principal before serving two terms as Quitman County school superintendent. Since July 2013, he has served as president of Coahoma Community College.
He said that when Friendship chose him, he “knew Greenwood fairly well as another Delta town” and had visited New Zion, McKinney Chapel and Strangers’ Home M.B. churches. His father also had preached at Friendship a few times. Towner had considered going into academia rather than ministry, but he took to pastoral work and Friendship’s family-oriented atmosphere quickly.
“It’s the best thing — meeting people and serving people,” he said. “What better way to show God appreciation for life than to serve?”
He doesn’t mind the drive from Marks, either, noting that many Delta pastors do their church work part time and often serve in multiple locations. For example, Fields lived in Greenville, and Cherry lived in Mound Bayou while leading Friendship.
Friendship held services on only the second and fourth Sundays when Towner arrived. It began meeting weekly in 2013 but dropped fifth-Sunday services in 2015. “Even now (on first and third Sundays), you can kind of notice a difference, because people are creatures of habit,” he said.
Hayes said Towner “brings a wonderful word that’s not just a word of cheer; it’s a word of truth, a word from the Bible. ... If you put your mind to it, it’ll be a word you can live by.”
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Towner estimated that Friendship’s attendance is about 40% of what it was before the pandemic, when it was typically “a couple hundred, easily.”
The sanctuary of Friendship Missionary Baptist Church opened in 2002. The fellowship hall now occupies the space that housed the previous sanctuary. (By Johnny Jennings, Copyright 2024 Emmerich Newspapers, Inc.)
Mitchell, who grew up in Friendship and has been a trustee since 1992, said Towner and the other church leaders responded well to the challenge.
“People didn’t come like they had been coming, but our pastor and deacons were here every Sunday,” she said. “And our doors never closed. We were broadcasting over Facebook, and some members came, and they sat near the back of the church. But we never closed our doors.”
Four years later, attendance “is not where it was, but we’re getting there,” she said.
Towner said the church is working to attract more people, and he tries to set a good example and express gratitude for those who are there. People fell away from God in biblical times, too, but they came back, he said — and he thinks that will happen again.
“A person’s spiritual walk is up to the individual person,” he said. “I can’t make you become closer to God. What I can do is, I can make sure I don’t give you a reason to not be close to God.”
The church is working to rekindle the women’s and men’s ministries and try to attract more young people. Hayes said he is particularly concerned about the young people.
“I would venture to say there are a lot of folks in the world today that are lost; not knowing Jesus Christ is what I mean when I say that,” he said. “And a lot of our young kids get to a certain age, and they don’t come anymore. I wish that wouldn’t be the case, and I don’t have the answer, and I don’t know if anybody else has the answer, but that is something that’s dear to me.
“If we get them in, we can keep them in,” he said. “But the hardest part’s getting them there.”
Towner said he remains hopeful. “You’ve got to be optimistic,” he said. “God’s always in control. And you don’t do stuff based on what you see and the optics and the numbers. At the end of the day, you’ve just got to be faithful. Do your thing; do what God would have you to do. That’s all I can do. And be grateful that you have an opportunity to be alive to do these things.”
- This article first appeared in Leflore Illustrated, a quarterly magazine published by The Greenwood Commonwealth.
