Gawler Church of Christ deacon Glennys Carse has written a book about the church’s history ahead of its 100th birthday later this month. PHOTO: Sam Bradbrook
HEROIC ministers, fluctuating membership and financial troubles have all been part of the Hewett Church of Christ’s history, but it is still holding strong as it closes in on its 100th birthday.
To celebrate the milestone, church deacon Glennys Carse has put together a book chronicling the church’s existence from a small Chapel on Adelaide Road, Gawler South, to its current home at the Hewett Community Centre on Kingfisher Drive.
Mrs Carse, who has been involved with the church for 19 years after moving to the area from Port Pirie, said she never set out to write a book.
“I wanted to look up some information after someone said something at our Annual General Meeting that didn’t sound right,” she said.
“Then, I got interested in the history of the church, and I thought, ‘how did the church get here altogether?’.
“I chased one thing, then got lost on another tangent, and ended up with a big stack of notes and, eventually, a book.”
The church was born on Adelaide Road in 1919 in the Gawler Foresters Hall, before a chapel was built on Adelaide Road at the current site of Kies Real Estate.
The size of the church’s membership in the 1990s forced it to find a new place to worship.
It eventually chose the growing suburb of Hewett and the new Hewett Primary School as its new home, before it moved into the Hewett Community Centre.
Mrs Carse said the church’s financial and membership situation had changed with the community and social circumstances.
“Membership has gone up and down, it’s reflective of society at the time,” she said.
“I found in times of disaster and other bad things, church attendances went up and people tended to stay.”
One of the more memorable stories from the church’s history included the heroic actions of one of the church’s early ministers, who helped a cart full of passengers escape a rolled train on the way to his first day on the job.
“One of the ministers was appointed from Melbourne, and on the way over his train derailed at Callington,” Mrs Carse said.
“He helped people get out of the rolled cart and helped look after them, I thought that was a great thing for one of our ministers to be involved in.
“There’s a lot of things the church leadership wasn’t aware of that I’ve dug up.”
The church will hold a 100th anniversary celebration service at 10am on Sunday, October 27.
