After Mediator's Ruling, Church Holds First Service in Months

A Woodstock church at the center of a dispute between its parishioners and its former pastor has finally come to a close.

A mediator last week ruled in favor of the parishioners at Welcome All Baptist Church, and the church held a worship service for the first time in months, according to WSBTV.com. 

The keys were turned over to members of the church, which were taken by former pastor Willard Hamrick when he locked members out of the church after a long-running dispute with money. 

The church, which is on Stell Road on the south side of Highway 92, held the service with its new pastor, Roy Smith. 

The church members told the news station it plans to hold a fundraiser to help raise money for the church's operations. 

On Easter Sunday, about 20 members of the church discovered they were locked out of the building and Hamrick threatened to have them arrested if they set foot on the property. 

This dispute was the latest in the congregation's battle with Hamrick and is connected to the record flooding that hit Woodstock and Cherokee County in 2009. 

The church suffered extensive water and wind damage and church officials received money to make repairs.

However, according to a lawsuit filed by church members Marshell Staton and Eva Henderson, Hamrick allegedly misappropriated $16,137.21 in insurance money given to the church to make the repairs. 

They also contend Hamrick didn't inform the church members of the additional $29,800 he received from the insurance company for the repairs, which was discovered by a treasurer in 2012. 

Instead of providing an account of what happened with the funds, church members say Hamrick decided to leave his post.

After the church hired their new pastor, Hamrick showed up and disrupted a Sunday morning service, which led members to call Cherokee Sheriff's Office deputies to restore order. 

Hamrick then announced that he'd been reinstated as the pastor and proceeded to lock the congregation out of the church. 

The case was filed in Cherokee County Superior Court and was later assigned to a mediator, which resolved the issue last Thursday. 

Hambrick told WSB at the time that he locked the congregation, the majority of whom were senior citizens, out of the place of worship because they had been removed from the church as members due to being "unbecoming Christians."

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