Deacon Phillip W. Ravenel knows the history of the church he grew up attending. He knows Lovely Mountain Baptist Church is 135 years old and his great-grandfather, who helped build it, was part of the congregation that first formed in a small tent.

Many stories and memories can be shared by church members, along with physical keepsakes, but the small Black church in North Charleston does not have a system in place to record and archive its history.  

“Nobody thought about putting them in a safe storage space so a couple of generations from now we can look back and say, ‘This is how the church got started and these are the folks that attended it,’” Ravenel said. 

Lovely Mountain Baptist Church is just one of several Black churches in the Charleston area that doesn’t have a formal documentation system in place.

This is why Minister Lisa Robinson and Minister Anna Montgomery, who attend Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in North Charleston, hosted a conference to help Black churches start the archival process. 

Nearly 20 church leaders and members heard from archivists and preservation experts about best practices for documenting a church’s history during the Nov. 4 virtual conference. 

You can read more in an article by Kenna Coe published in The Post and Courier web site at: https://tinyurl.com/yhd23fhr.