Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Editor’s Note: This feature originally ran in the Dec ’24/Jan 2025 edition of the LaGrange Living magazine, a publication produced bi-monthly by the LaGrange Daily News. If you would like to pick up a copy of the LaGrange Living magazine, please visit our office at 115 Broad Ste 101.

Feature by: Jeff Moore

A national historic preservation organization is helping Warren Temple United Methodist Church, recognized for its role in the civil rights movement, make improvements to its more than 90-year-old building and facilities in LaGrange.

Warren Temple UMC has been awarded a $100,000 matching grant from the National Fund for Sacred Places to make needed improvements to the nearly century-old sanctuary and facilities. The fund is a program of the  Partners for Sacred Places in collaboration with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Church pastor, the Rev. Carl Von Epps, said there is a lot of work planned at the church that was constructed in 1934.

“Starting with the electricity, we will probably redo the entire electrical panel and electricity throughout the building,” Epps noted.

The project also will address the structure, frame and foundation, including beams, floor, slabs and columns, exterior walls, including the doors, he explained. Additionally, plumbing, the sprinkler system at the historic church, and the heating and cooling system will be upgraded as part of the work.

As part of the award, Warren Temple UMC now has to raise $100,000 to match the grant funds.

“We do have a separate fund, separate account created to generate those matching funds,” Epps said. The fundraising began on Oct. 16, the day the church was awarded the grant.

“We have begun the process with pledges from individuals,” he noted, adding they are open to support for this historic preservation work from business and industry.

Epps said the project is expected to take 18 to 24 months to complete.

Donations can be made to the fund by contacting Epps at vonepps@yahoo.com or by calling the church at 706-882-0675.

The LaGrange church is one of 26 churches nationwide to receive grants in October from the National Fund for Sacred Places. In a news release about the grants, the organization stated it is a one-of-a-kind program that offers support to congregations preserving historic and architecturally significant houses of worship. Since its inception, the National Fund has awarded or pledged over $26 million to 138 community-serving congregations representing 26 faith traditions across 42 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

“We are proud to welcome 24 faith communities into the National Fund this year, representing diverse regions, traditions and heritages,” said Bob Jaeger, President of Partners for Sacred Places. “Their buildings will continue to serve as community centers, art spaces and safe havens. We’re honored to help them continue this critical work.”

“Sacred places hold power to inspire awe, joy and a sense of connection, belonging and purpose,” said Carol Quillen, President and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “The grants and technical support provided by the National Fund will ensure that these spaces serve as meaningful centers within their communities for generations.”

Warren Temple United Methodist Church in LaGrange is more than just a place of worship for its congregation. It holds a significant place in the civil rights movement — work that continues today more than a century and half since its founding.

“Our proud beginning was back at the very end of the Civil War,” the Rev. Carl Von Epps began, detailing the church’s origins. “The church was started by some European Americans who previously allowed African Americans to attend one of three churches in LaGrange in the balcony.”

The Black congregants decided in 1865 that they needed their own church, according to two histories written about the church — one by historic society member Forrest Clark Johnson III and the other by church historian Rashad Little.

With the help of the Rev. John H. Caldwell, the histories explain the congregation constructed the church on Hill Street in LaGrange. Caldwell and other white Georgia preachers came together after the Civil War’s end to bring Methodists back together to end the split over slavery that led to the creation the Methodist Episcopal Church.

The Rev. Peter Abram Heard, a white plantation owner, served as the first pastor of the new church. Heard assigned his preaching duties to the Rev. Frank Joseph, a former slave, according to Johnson’s history. All of the pastors leading the church were white until in 1882, when the Rev. S.C. Upshaw was appointed.

That was also the year when Henry White Warren, a white Methodist bishop from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, came and spoke at the church, which was later named in his honor, according to the histories.

During the late 1870s, Warren Temple took steps to educate the Black community in LaGrange, first by offering spelling classes and then building an African American school called the LaGrange Academy in 1877. The school was later renamed for its superintendent John King, who guided the construction and served in the school leadership role for many years.

The histories note that the John King School was operated by Warren Temple UMC until 1903 when the City of LaGrange rented the building and brought it in to the city’s public school system.

The members also had their eyes on a better home for the church.

The congregation decided in 1899 that they needed a more substantial brick building to replace the original wood-frame structure. King again stepped up to help with the project that saw the first cornerstone laid in 1903. The new building was finally completed in 1908 at the southern end of King Street.

Johnson’s history states that Warren Temple remained in that building for more than two decades. But the population moved and church member John Moore led the project to replace that building with the one that now houses the Methodist church on East Depot Street.

Moore, who was a local builder, oversaw completion of the Bozart-style architecture in December 1934, a design that set it apart from other churches in Troup County, according to Little’s history piece.

The current church building underwent its first extensive renovation in 2003 when work was needed to replace the main floor in the building because of its failing structural integrity, Little wrote in his church history. As part of this work, church members decided to restore the sanctuary to its original appearance, honoring the church’s history.

More work on the church came in 2010 when the fellowship hall and kitchen were remodeled with new modern appliances added. This work was funded by long-time church members George R. Moore and his wife Ruth, according to the histories.

Warren Temple UMC not only served the spiritual and educational needs of the African American community in LaGrange, it also has played a key role in the civil rights movement.

In fall of 1940, Warren Temple’s pastor, the Rev. L.W. Strickland, along with other pastors and leaders of the Black community, met at the church to organize Troup County’s first chapter of the NAACP, according to the National Fund for Sacred Places.

“This action came shortly after the lynching of Austin Callaway in LaGrange in September 1940,” the National Fund reported in its announcement about on the grant. “In 2017, as a result of community activism and dialogue, the mayor, chief of police and other city leaders formally apologized for the lynching of Austin Callaway. This event, held at Warren Temple, garnered national attention and is believed to be the first such event in the nation.”

According to Little’s history, LaGrange Mayor Jim Thornton and Police Chief Lou Dekmar led the ceremony with other local officials offering the formal apology.

Later that year, members of Warren Temple, Troup Together, Troup NAACP, the Equal Justice Initiative and members of Austin Callaway’s family gathered to unveil a permanent historical marker on the church grounds lamenting Callaway’s lynching and recognizing Warren Temple’s role in responding to it, Little documented.

The event featured remarks from EJI founder Bryan Stevenson, LaGrange Mayor Jim Thornton, the Rev. Vincent Dominique of Warren Temple, leaders from the LaGrange First Baptist Church, Troup Together, Troup NAACP, and the families of the late Gene Bowen and Rev. L.W. Strickland marked the occasion, according to the Little history.

A lifelong resident of LaGrange and a former state elected official for 22 years, Rev. Epps sees his mission as one of service.

“My mission is to give back, to help those along the way,” he said.

During his career as a minister for the United Methodist Church, Warren Temple was one of the many churches where he served as pastor.

Epps expressed gratitude for the opportunity to lead Warren Temple again.

“It has to be a Godsend that I was appointed pastor here in retirement in 2020,” he said. “I was baptized here in 1957, and now I get to give back to this historic church.”

When Epps reached the Methodist Church’s mandatory retirement age of 72, he was able to return to LaGrange and become Warren Temple’s pastor under the denomination’s designation of “retired supply.”

Epps said church services are held at 11 a.m. each Sunday.

Adult Sunday school classes are held prior to that service beginning at 9:30 a.m.

Epps noted that since the COVID-19 pandemic, Warren Temple also holds its services and Sunday school on Zoom for those who cannot come into the church.

Classes are held for youth at 5:30 p.m. each Sunday evening.

Epps said to contact the church for the Zoom numbers to participate in the online services.

Warren Temple United Methodist Church is more than just a place of worship for LaGrange as it serves as a community resource for the community through the many programs it offers.

The Rev. Carl Von Epps, pastor at Warren Temple, said in the program just weeks before Christmas the church distributed more than 4,500 pounds of food.

“We can make sure that the community knows that we are intentional about being a community-based church,” Epps said

Programs range from providing nourishment for the body and not just the soul, to working on breaking down barriers between the races, encouraging reading and sharing the church’s role in the civil rights movement.

For information, contact the Rev. Epps by email at vonepps@yahoo.com or by calling the church at 706-882-0675