Fifty Years Strong: The Faithful Journey of Community Church of PK Lake

Story by Michelle Ince | Photos by Erika Carter

Community Church of PK Lake is celebrating 50 years of service to the Possum Kingdom area – and although the church is celebrating a huge milestone, the steps to achieve it didn’t always come easy.

While facing challenges and low attendance at times, the church has endured and is now thriving through what some might say is the grace of God.

Founding member Kevin VanDuser said the church was founded out of necessity, and its members first began meeting in the home of Tom and Maxine Darington on Frontier Unit Road. The worshipers eventually moved to the former Lions Club building on La Villa Drive in a small meeting room that they rented for $25 per day.

“It wasn’t that common to have interdenominational churches, but people that came to the lake wanted to go to church,†VanDuser said. “You had a choice, number one, in Texas, of being a Baptist going to the Episcopal church, because they had the little church on the lake, or going to Graford for some of the other ones, or to the Catholic church. So a lot of the people wanted to come, but they didn’t want to drive 60 miles round-trip for church.â€

He said the answer came to the church’s members after answering this question: “Why don’t we just get together and see what we could form?â€

VanDuser said the congregation included people from many denominations, and that’s how it started as a community church.

“We had no affiliation,†he said. “We were just an independent group of people who wanted to come worship.â€

In December 1977 the Brazos River Authority issued a lease to the church for a 3.5-acre tract on FM 2353, where the church members still gather for worship.

Construction on the church’s original structure started in 1979, and members came together to complete the inside of the church on weeknights, VanDuser said.

“It was a lot of fun because it was all volunteers,†he said, including “left-handed carpenters and blind people with power tools. We had nail guns. I kept shooting that nail gun and saying, ‘This nail gun isn’t working.’ Well, I shot (a nail) through the two-by-four, and it kept going through the roof. So I got to do some nailing and some caulking.â€

Building the church was a labor of love, he said, and two of the founding members were Kathy and Kirby Groves, who owned Groves Plumbing. VanDuser said that when plumbing, wiring or any similar needs arose, the Groves were always there to help, along with their sons Kevin and Kerry.

As the church’s congregation grew, so did the church’s mission, and in 1981 its members began a missions giving program. VanDuser said at first the church dedicated 10 percent of all undesignated contributions to local, home and foreign missions, but now it gives 12 percent to these efforts.

He said it also was in 1981 that the church officially adopted the name of Community Church of Possum Kingdom Lake.

In 1982, member Janis Alling organized and led “Big A,†an after-school program for area youths. The program’s name changed in 1993 to “KIDS,†which stood for “Kids in Divine Service.†These days that youth program continues under the moniker “CCPK Kids.â€

When a new addition was added to the church in 1984, Kathy Groves knew a family that wanted to donate something. Mrs. T.W. Reilley donated a stained-glass window for the sanctuary, and in 1980 Kathy Groves gave an explanation of the window’s significance and colors at a dedication service. In April 2000, when the church added an expansion, the Groves and their sons donated another stained-glass window to honor the parents and grandparents in the congregation.

In 1991, Carol Belding organized the church’s jail ministry program to provide Christmas packets to Palo Pinto County jail inmates. That program is still going, and these days it has extended its outreach to Young County as well.

In 2002 the church’s congregation built the community playground  that  is  open  to  the  public,  and  the men’s fellowship group installed three crosses as a focal point in 2003. A lending library also took root in 2004.

Adversity struck the church in 2013 when an electrical fire broke out, but that didn’t stop its members from coming together again. For more than a year after the fire, the church’s services were held at Charlie’s Angels, and on January 12, 2014, members broke ground for the new church. On November 23, 2014, the first service took place at the new building. A Bible located in the pulpit miraculously survived the electrical fire and is still in the church to this day.

During this time, many pastors served the community church. One of them was Terry Reynolds, who admitted to stepping in the role a little reluctantly at first.  “I became really involved in the church and served on the church council, and one day Foy Layton, who was the pastor here, called me,† Reynolds said.    “ I was still working in Fort Worth as a sales manager, and he said, ‘We can’t find a pastor for this Sunday. Would you mind doing the message this Sunday?’ I told him, ‘Foy, I’ll do anything in the world for you, but I can’t get up in that pulpit and preach.’

“So I hung up the phone, and the Holy Spirit got ahold of me and said, ‘You need to call him back, and you need to do this.’ So I called him back and said, ‘Foy, I’ll do it. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I’ll do it.’ I preached my first sermon in 2006, and in 2009 the church ordained me as pastor.â€

Reynolds said he officially signed his contract in 2013 to become the church’s full-time pastor, the same year of the electrical fire. At the time, Reynolds said, he didn’t understand why all this was happening to the church.

An insurance adjuster who came out to inspect the damage presented two paths forward: Either remodel the church or build a new one from the ground up. The congregation decided to build a new church, and it was Thanksgiving 2014 that the first service took place in the new building.

The church continued to flourish for the next few years, but then the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020. VanDuser, along with John Martin, the oldest member of the church at 95, and Reynolds all agreed that the pandemic had a detrimental effect on the church. Its current pastor, Jack Thomas, said when he was hired in 2022, he got voted in by 13 people.

“What I had come into was a group of worn-out, tired people that just loved this place and refused to let it die because of the vision that was planted here a long time ago,†Thomas said. “We’ve got some of the most dedicated people I’ve ever seen that are just willing to be a part. I didn’t know what to expect and where God was taking this, but we started there. We had 13 people, and we’ve done a lot of different things and updated the building. When I started, they said, ‘You’ve got an empty canvas. Have your way with it.’ â€

Thomas said the church’s members are still redoing and updating the building, and because of “a lot of growth,†the teaching classroom is the focus of current refurbishments.

Thomas said up to 170 people have been in attendance on recent Sundays, and the church also welcomes around 50 youths on Wednesday nights. He proudly shared that the church has more than 13 ministries and added that 17 staff members are leading various ministry efforts.

Thomas noted that all this is happening even though the congregation lost many members in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I can’t imagine how easy it would have been for them to just give up, but it was healthy, and we’ve always been a good, healthy church,†he said. “The people who started this church did an excellent job of structuring something, in my opinion, better than most denominations do.â€

He said the church’s bylaws do not allow it to go into debt or to take out loans.

“Everything we’ve got is paid for,†Thomas said. “It’s the ‘American dream’ type of church, and the one thing I love about it as well is that we implement things.â€

No matter what denomination or walk of life believers hail from, they are welcome at the church, Thomas said. He said the multigenerational church includes hymns for its more traditional worshipers, and also includes contemporary songs for those who enjoy that type of worship experience. There are many elements from several denominations integrated into the church’s services so that all can feel connected during worship, he said.

Thomas said the congregation is always working toward the church’s vision, which is to love God, invest in families and serve the community.

“It’s been quite a journey,†Martin said.

Added Reynolds: “When I think about the history of this church, I think about 1 Corinthians 3:6, where Paul says, ‘I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God caused the growth.’ So to see whoever planted the seed and how God has made the growth of this church, it’s been pretty awesome.â€

Church services start at 10:45 a.m. on Sundays and are preceded by Bible study from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in the church’s main classroom. On Wednesday nights, youth services start at 6 p.m. and end at 8 p.m., and all children in attendance are fed. The church also has two buses that can pick up those children who don’t have a ride. A security team also is on hand to lock down the building and help keep everything secure.