Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church has seen many changes in its 147 years as a place of worship. It is located on the same property where it first began, just a few miles up the road from Simpson County Academy at 374 Zion Hill Road in Mendenhall.
According to Dr. Bernard Mitchell, pastor, Zion Hill is the second oldest African American church in the community. Mitchell himself has been with the church since 1999; he’s celebrating 23 years this month. Prior to answering the call here he served a church in Butler, Ala., for four years. Mitchell received his doctorate of divinity from El White Theological Seminary in Mobile, Ala. in May 2000. He married his wife Dizzia 28 years ago this month, and they have five children and four grandchildren.
Like many other churches, Zion Hill made changes to services and programs to accommodate for Covid-19 in 2020. With two Sunday morning services at 8 and 11 a.m., it was not unusual to average a total of 500 in attendance. Mitchell said currently on a good Sunday now, maybe 50 attend in person. However, using Facebook live for services the church sees as many as 1,200 country-wide on average.
While they have returned to one in person Sunday morning service at 8 a.m. the leadership is watching Covid numbers closely in hope of returning to Monday night Adult Bible Study and Wednesday night youth and children’s programming.
Dr. Mitchell designated Wednesday night for youth shortly after arriving at Zion Hill. The programming is geared toward teaching with an activity night once a month. Attendance is kept, and only those who participate in the classes may attend activity nights. Activities are designed around the seasons of the year, and the group meets according to the county’s school calendar.
Mitchell describes the congregation as loving and caring people. Zion Hill has lost two members to Covid, but he points out that several others have moved. “We lost some members, especially young ones that have moved due to job opportunities…especially to Texas. Texas is getting everybody – between Houston and the Dallas area.”
He also believes church membership is based on the availability of the church to where people live. “It’s job opportunities, the school…not only does it help the town but it gets people to come to your churches. Once that falls then you have falling away from the church. It’s not so much they’re not coming; they moved away. That’s why churches have to be involved in trying to support whatever is going on within that community or that town or the school system. That’s part of your lifeline.”
Mitchell continued, “Hopefully with things kind of making a turn for the better, with grade level numbers from testing going back up…hopefully this generation that’s starting families…maybe we can do something to hold them a little bit better.”
When Mitchell first began his tenure at Zion Hill the congregation had just completed construction on a new sanctuary, fellowship hall and classrooms. The former sanctuary was torn down only recently.
There was also a parsonage on the property for the pastor and his family. When the Mitchells bought a home in Magee, the church renovated the parsonage to become the church’s activity center. The property on which that center was built housed a school when the church was born, like many other communities in the Simpson County area.
Even with the changes Zion Hill has seen over the years its primary focus remains the same. “Our goal is to mature the Christian that is already saved and save those that are not saved yet. We do that through Christian education and the worship experience every Sunday morning.”
