Provencal Free Methodist History

History of Provencal Free Methodist Church in Provencal, Louisiana.

Provencal

Free Methodist Church

Free Methodism began in Provencal in 1942 after Ethel Bates Whitley heard of the efforts to begin a Free Methodist Church in Shreveport. She and others invited Reed A. Swift, then district elder of the Louisiana Conference to hold a revival in Provencal. The effort was a success, and the church was organized. Some of the charter members were Ethel Bates Whitley, Amanda Bates (her mother), Ella Bates Moore (her sister) and Lula Ritchie (her aunt).

In 1942, a parsonage was bought and a pastor appointed. V.T. Bradford began the first Provencal Free Methodist pastorate and the first of his 35 years of service to the Louisiana Conference. The parsonage was used for worship for a short time.

A church was soon built of lumber from a building purchased in Flora. William Page hauled lumber, V.T. Bradford built, and R.G. Barnes did the finishing work. Others helped.

Something must be said of the ministry of R.G. Barnes. He served the same church for 20 consecutive years. Furthermore, he refused to accept a church salary for most of those years and spent much of own self-earned money on church endeavors. He carried on cottage prayer meetings for 20 years, in addition to regular services. R.G. Barnes drove as far as 80 miles to have prayer meetings in a home and had a total of 9 ministers present in one home service. These were high points as far as distance and attendance were concerned. Only God knows the good that has resulted from more than 1,000 home prayer meetings conducted.

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Pastors who have served Provencal since 1942 were as follows:

V.T. Bradford - 2 years (1942 - 1944)

Raymond Lewis - 4 years (1944 - 1948)

(with Ulala Cromwell as his assistant) (1948)

M.E. Fellows - 2 years (1948 - 1950)

L.E. Bradford - 4 years (1950 - 1954)

Kenneth Lukens - 3 years (1954 - 1957)

Louis H. Reese - 2 years (1957 - 1959)

Wade Robinson - 1 year (1959 - 1960)

R.G. Barnes - 23 years (1960 - 1983)

Albert Carnline - 2 year assistant ( 1983 - 1985)

James Jolly - 6 years (1985 - 1991)

E.C. Wiley - a total of 2 years ( 1991-1992 & 1995-1996)

Harvey Belgard - 1 year (1992 - 1993)

Joe Thompson - 1 year (1993 - 1994)

Carroll Bradford - 1 year (1994 - 1995)

Randy Deville - 1 year (1996 - 1997)

________ Bolton - 1 year (1997 - 1998)

James Jolly - 2 years (1998 - 2000)

George Carr - 4 years (2000 - 2004)

Elton Hodge - 1 year

Tim Milam

And our current pastor - Mike Marbut - who has been with us since early summer of 2006. tmb