Roaring Fork Baptist Church pastor the Rev. Kim McCroskey talks about the church rebuilding after Gatlinburg's November 2016 fire. Amy McRary
GATLINBURG - Leveled by the Nov. 28, 2016, wildfire that swept through its town and killed 14 people, Gatlinburg's Roaring Fork Baptist Church is rebuilt – bigger, better and blessed.
The Rev. Kim McCroskey sees the last 13 months of challenges and gifts as the Lord's plan. The devil tried to destroy his church but only burned its buildings. Great things, he believes, will happen when Roaring Fork comes home in early 2018.
"The Lord gave the devil permission to burn (the church) down. But the devil didn't know what was coming. If the devil had seen all this now - and he's not omnipotent like the Lord is - I believe he'd have left us alone," McCroskey said days before Christmas.
Blessings built in
Roaring Fork was one of at least four churches the fire damaged or destroyed. First Baptist Gatlinburg will replace the burned building that held its youth and food ministries. Banner Baptist lost its fellowship hall; it's built a small, temporary replacement as it creates a long-range development plan.
The 28-member Gatlinburg Church of Christ was destroyed. It plans to start rebuilding in early 2018, said church member David Barton.
At Roaring Fork, larger, modern buildings replace destroyed ones. “The Ark,” a 12,000-square-foot family life center with a commercial kitchen, should be ready mid-January.
It’d be mid-March – just weeks before Easter – before services are held in the two-story, 14,000-square-foot worship center. Its 452-seat sanctuary is nearly double the 229-person capacity of the 1949 building. Ten basement Sunday School classrooms are at least twice as large as those they replace.
Blessings are built in walls. Volunteers rebuilt most of Roaring Fork, leaving Bible verses or encouragements scribbled on supports and door frames. Paint, sheetrock or wood eventually will cover such phrases as “For when I am weak, then I am strong," and “Bless this house and all would enter.”
‘Don’t put new wine in old wine skins’
Roaring Fork’s growing congregation wanted to build a new worship center on one side of its sanctuary. But the expansion could have eliminated needing parking.
Then fire set the church’s course.
"God has provided amazingly. This church could never ever have hoped to have these kinds of facilities without the fire,” says McCroskey, Roaring Fork pastor 10 years. “You had to take away what was here to force our hands to do probably what God wanted a long time ago. We have gained more than we lost.
“The Lord decided he didn’t want something new on something old. The Bible says don’t put new wine in old wine skins.”
'The church is gone'
The fire already had burned almost a week inside neighboring Great Smoky Mountains National Park before it came for Roaring Fork.
At his Sevier County home in Kodak, McCroskey noticed it was “snowing ashes” the morning of Nov. 28. People knew the park’s remote Chimneytops were burning. No one was ready for what happened hours later.
Around 6 p.m., winds approaching 90 mph sent flames through parts of Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevier County. Downed power lines and burning debris sparked at least 20 fires in 15 minutes. Fires burned through the night and into Nov. 29.
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In addition to those who died, almost 200 people were hurt. Nearly 2,500 homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed. Other churches also were damaged.
Around 8 p.m. Nov. 28 a deacon who lives near the church called McCroskey. The stone and cinder block sanctuary was gone. So was the wood and metal family life center built in 2003 and paid off in 2015.
Fire hopscotched. Two homes behind the sanctuary burned; Roaring Fork later bought the land where they stood. Next to them, the small white frame house where McCroskey sometimes stays wasn't touched. "The Lord knew i needed my suits," he says.
Signs from the Lord
Three things survived in Roaring Fork’s charred wood and twisted metal. Its steeple bell, a concrete Jesus statue and the pastor's basement study.
Authorities evacuated areas of Gatlinburg until Dec. 9. But McCroskey, like others, got in to see the rubble of his church. On Nov. 30 he walked what remained of the worship center basement, passing rooms where fire melted metal tables.
His small study stood at the hall’s end. Its locked door wasn’t burned. Inside, everything – his ordination papers, church records, books, furniture – was covered in soot. But they remained whole in the only room the fire didn't get.
"I think that was God's way of saying, 'You're not through.' About that time, I needed some hope because I was just walking through rubble and destruction and thinking, 'What now Lord?'
“The Lord gives us signs that it's going to be OK and that was the first one I got." he says.
‘The church where Jesus survived’
The 1,000-pound bell hit concrete when it tumbled from the steeple. It needed repairs to support pieces but still rang true. Now it’s ready in the new steeple’s bellhouse to ring again.
Next door the family life center caved around but never hit a concrete Jesus holding small children. A photo of the statue grabbed the public’s attention. One woman called McCroskey asking, "Is this the church where Jesus survived?”
"That building could just have easily fallen on that statue and broke it in a million pieces. The bell could have shattered and been ruined. Christ is hope; He gives us little windows saying 'You're not through,’ " McCroskey says.
Building for Christ
From the archives: Roaring Fork Baptist Church pastor Kim McCroskey dicusses the loss of their church in the aftermath of the November 2016 Gatlinburg wildfires. Submitted by Tennessee Baptist Mission Board
Church leaders knew they’d rebuild Roaring Fork. Insurance - $2.1 million on the buildings and $300,000 in contents - would help but not cover all the cost. The church was solid financially.
They were uncertain how they'd rebuild. Then, three weeks after the fire, Builders for Christ called.
Builders for Christ builds church buildings, providing and coordinating volunteers whose jobs range from framing to roofing to carpentry to hanging drywall to installing heating and air conditioning. Churches supply materials; Builders for Christ labor.
The group usually books work a year or two in advance, McCroskey says. But on Nov. 29 - a day after the Gatlinburg fire – Builders of Christ’s planned summer 2017 project was canceled. So they came to build Roaring Fork.
Working in teams of 80 to 300, about 2,000 volunteers built the two buildings. McCroskey estimates that work saved $1 million, maybe $1.5 million, in labor. Without it he says Roaring Fork may have only had one new building.
When Builders for Christ left mid-August, construction was 90 percent complete. In mid-October the church hired Knoxville general contractor George W. Reagan to complete the work.
Services continued
Roaring Fork congregants quickly found a temporary home six miles away at Camp Smoky Christian Retreat Center. Sometimes, in good weather, they worshipped on their own property under an open air pavilion.
Before the fire, 200 to 250 people – local residents and out-of-state vacationers – attended Sunday services. At Camp Smoky attendance’s dropped to about 130. McCroskey sees the dip as temporary.
"It's a testimony to the spirit of the church how well we have stayed together," he says. “It’s amazing to me how people from out of state still find us. But when we get back over here, it will be phenomenal."
‘Bearing one another’s burdens’
McCroskey says rebuilding will total about $3.5 million, not counting Builders for Christ’s free labor. Benefactors – individuals and Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran and nondenominational churches – donated about $1 million. Others gave material gifts that include a sanctuary piano.
"Right now we have not borrowed a penny. We still have a little in the bank, and it’s going to cost a little something going forward,” McCroskey says.
“There are people in the world who are just good people who love the Lord and believe in what we do. This is how Christianity should look all the time – bearing one another’s burdens and fulfilling the law of God as the Bible says.”
'Thou Shalt Not Be Burned'
Fifteen days before this Christmas, the Old Testament verse Isaiah 43:2 was posted on Roaring Fork's Facebook page. The verse, in part, promises "When thou walkest through the fire, thou shall not be burned; Neither shall the flame kindle upon thee."
About a year ago, days after Roaring Fork was destroyed, McCroskey read that same verse. About 40 church members met at a Sevierville bed and breakfast on Dec. 1, 2016.
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“I read that scripture. It was tough. We all cried. I just assured everybody we were not through,” he recalls.
Isaiah’s aren’t the Bible’s only words McCroskey’s leaned on. He quotes verses from Philippians that read “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me” and, in part, “my God shall supply all your need…”
“I depend on it all,” he says.
“I know you can trust God. You can trust him to be faithful in whatever’s going on, whatever happens. When it seems hopeless you can trust him. And when you go through the fire, you won’t be burned.”