— Brian York/Tribune-Courier || The brass bell recently purchased by Pleasant Valley Missionary Baptist Church hangs in the newly built tower. The bell was rang for the first time on Easter Sunday.

Pleasant Valley Missionary Baptist Church is bringing back an old tradition

By Brian York
Tribune-Courier Reporter
byork@tribunecourier.com

BENTON – On country music singer Josh Turner’s latest album entitled “Everything is Fine” Turner opens up the album with the title track.

A song about simple living during simple times. During the song he offers up this line, “Sunday morning here the church bells ringing, let us go and see who is getting baptized.”

That line seems to be a bit surreal as it really conjures up images of the past more so than the present.

For it is a rarity this day to hear those church bells ringing. Well, for the most part.

Pleasant Valley Missionary Baptist Church is trying to revive that old Sunday morning sound.

Recently the church purchased a solid brass bell, which was built in Louisville in the 1880’s.

They purchased it with the hope that it would act as a witness in its own right by reminding their neighbors of where they should be.

“We are out in the country and we just feel like the bell is a ministry,” said Duane Holland, preacher at Pleasant Valley. “The bell at 11 a.m. should remind them that it is church time and it is Sunday. We feel like that is a witness to itself.”

Holland said the idea for the bell came one Wednesday night as one of the church members was asked to fill in for Holland, who is also a social worker, as he was out of town on business.

The message was about how a church bell ringing one Sunday morning while the man was out running around with friends helped remind him of what his priorities should be.

“One of the men in the church took care of Wednesday night service one night as I had to be away,” Holland said. “He spoke and used a variety of bells, from a small bell to a cow bell. He talked about being away from church and how he was out with some boys and a church bell started ringing and he felt like he was being reminded of where he ought to be.”

Holland said the message and the bells interested the congregation.

“That story got our folks interested in a church bell,” Holland said. “We began to search and there was a boy in Reidland with an estate auction where they had 60-70 bells of all sizes and they had several cast iron bells and they had this one.”

The auction was during Sunday service, but the auctioneer gave his word they would not try and sale the bells until Pleasant Valley could get there.

“We had talked to the auctioneer and he said they were going to auction them on Sunday,” Holland said. “He told me they would not auction the bell until we were out of service and could get down there. There was only a couple of people bidding for the bell and we were able to get it as the family wanted the church to have the bell.”

Once the bell was purchased the next task was to build a tower and with help from everybody in the church the tower and the bell was hung in no time.

“We then set about building a tower and one of our men who works at Pella made a window,” Holland said. “Several of us all worked together to put it up.”

Pleasant Valley Missionary Baptist Church rang the bell for the first time on Easter Sunday. To celebrate their 36 years in existence they rang it 36 times. They plan on ringing the bell every Sunday, but not 36 times.

“On Easter we rang the bell for the first time,” Holland said. “Homecoming is in May and we have been in existence for 36 years and we will be ringing it 36 times. We plan to then ring it every Sunday morning.”