There are five things that have been true, have been the story of us here at Cultivate Church, and need to be the story of us in the future.
First, Cultivate Church fights for the weak.
In 1850, the Wesleyan Methodist connection was just seven years old. The denomination had broken away from the Methodist Episcopal church of America in opposition to slavery.
The fugitive slave law was enacted making it illegal to harbor runaway slaves. If a slave came to you and asked for help, you were required by law to turn them in.
The Wesleyan Methodists had spoken out on slavery but now the people of what would become Cultivate Church, put their words into action. They became an underground railroad stop, on the way to Canada. Since the fugitive slave law of 1850 made it a crime to harbor runaway slaves, men, women, and children were moved under cover of night up lima plank road, now known as old 3. Some historians estimate that Indiana had two to 10 thousand slaves pass through it on the way to Canada.
Aaron Worth pastored here in the late 1870s was one of the youngest conductors of the Underground Railroad. He writes: “Few people of our present generation seem to realize what a mighty struggle the nation passed through in old anti-slavery times. A man’s foes were sometimes in his own household. I could often hear their remarks that I was a “nigger preacher””
Our church didn’t escape unscathed. The danger of smuggling slaves was made only too real by bullet scars from slave owners’ guns in the church’s original door, walls and pews.
Our history says, that we stand up and fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. We stand in the gap. We take the hit. We sacrifice, and we sweat, and we bleed so that others might have just a glimpse of the goodness of God.
We have been a people who are ready to stand up. We have planted ourselves by the river of God’s justice, and say to a broken and messed up world, a world that pushes us to move to accept the pain and problems all around us as some kind of normal, we plant ourselves and say to a world of injustice, no, you move.
We are the voices of hope.
When Jesus declared his ministry to the world he read this:
Luke 4:18-19 - “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD’s favor has come.”
Jesus came to fight for the weak, Cultivate Church does too.
Second, Cultivate Church makes LaOtto better.
In the 1950’s pastor George Ott organized the “LaOtto Community Association” in an effort to keep the community’s post office which the government had threatened to close. The association developed the community center and park west of the church as well as other improvements. Today, our food pantry and community table dinners draw in 80 to 100 people. We want to not only try and solve the symptoms of problems, like pastor Ott we want to solve the problems themselves. We want to make LaOtto better.
We do life together here, with the world around us.
Cultivate Church is here for God, but also to make LaOtto better. Its who we are. Its what we do.
Cultivate Church makes LaOtto better.
Third, Cultivate Church values people.
In the 1880’s LaOtto began sending out people to serve. Five of its pastors became major church leaders, and the church was the site of several general conferences, including one where Augustus Cole addressed the people and talked about the needs in Sierra Leone where he was from. This conference then decided to commission Cole as an elder and to commission missionaries, the very first missionaries our denomination sent.
In 1896 Edna Baker began teaching Sunday school at LaOtto. For the next 62 years she would serve as the leader of this church, by teaching, preaching, being treasurer, and board member. She taught 1st and second grade at the LaOtto school leading three generations of people in this community.
The story of Cultivate Church is the story of people like Lewis Briggs, or Ed Grabill, or Pauline Troyer. People who say I am going to spend my life, by investing in other people. People who say my life is not my own, other people are more important than I am.
Cultivate Church turns out people who believe in each other who buy into the notion of what Jesus mean when he said the two great commands are love God, and love others.
We are known by love.
Fourth, Cultivate Church risks big.
According to Dr. Lee Haines, Cultivate Church (formerly LaOtto Wesleyan) is one of the oldest, if not the oldest structure in our denomination still being used as a church.
The building was named Lee chapel after Luther Lee one of the founders of our denomination, and he was also the one who dedicated our church.
Then just as now, the church relied on its members to be faithful and generous in their giving. The church had been built for the sum of $1000 but more than 550 dollars was not yet paid. That first Sunday, the people asked for gifts and for pledges. When all was added up, the church had given $640.
The church not only faced financial problems but also other problems. During this time, Noble county had a reputation as a nest for criminals who took refuge in the swamps. These highway bandits were known as “black legs” because of the muck on their legs and terrorized the area until on of their leaders was hanged by the state-approved band of vigilantes known as the “swan regulators.”
Lets start a church with no money, in the middle of a swamp, with highway robbers all around.
Cultivate Church did it. We risk big and we gain big. When this church decides to trust and risk for God, things happen that we never expected. We risk by believing.
God tells us in his word that without faith, it is impossible to please him. We know that God gave us our lives, our bodies, this world, this church, not to turn into him unused and carefully preserved, but used up, beat up, changed, and shaken from the ride.
We live by faith.
Fifth, Cultivate Church grows.
In 1849-1850 the LaOtto Wesleyan Church was organized. This gathering of people was originally called the Dekalb Mission and met at the Holbrook school near CR 68. The small gathering of just a handful, merged with other communities to have a network of believers all around this area. They shared pastors, who would travel from place to place on horseback.
In 1859, the group had outgrown the small school and began building a church building called Lee chapel which was located about ¾ mile north of our church’s current location. In 1876 the church moved to its new and present location and was rededicated.
During the depression the youth group and young adults who couldn’t find work dug out the basement and enlarged it to the size of the footprint of the church. All four Sunday school classes met in the sanctuary in different corners, because they had to. In 1965 the church added on and was dedicated again. This project doubled the size of the church and added office space, a large nursery, choir platform classrooms, and included new pulpit furniture and bright red carpet.
In 1970’s the church added another wing to its building making new bathrooms and a foyer. In 1993 the church added on again, more bathrooms, a classroom area too. In 2001, we added our huge multipurpose rom, with a kitchen, classrooms, baptistery, stage, lighting, and praise the lord, air conditioning.
Due to pipes breaking and the needs of growing children and youth ministries, the basement was remodeled in 2008, and the sanctuary was repurposed as a children’s room and painted bright blue. On most Sundays and Wednesdays kids rock out with lights and great worship music, and teens have a place to call their own.
Recently we added another wall and refurbished our nursery and toddler room. We expanded the parking lot, added all kinds of features and tools, all so that Jesus could be made famous in this corner of Indiana.
A lot of people would think that a church that is over 160 years old would be against change but I think it’s the only way we have stayed a church for 160 years.
Our church has outlasted three schools, more than 20 presidents, more than 10 wars and conflicts, countless business and road changes, our church even outlasted the bright red carpet that some of us would still be here when Jesus came back.
Cultivate Church grows, it changes to meet the needs of the people of this community of faith, and the needs of the community around us. It changes to be relevant, to be useful, to be beautiful, to be used by God.
Cultivate Church grows.
These five things that give Cultivate Church identity in the past, give it a mission in the future. These are things we have already done, we have already been about. God has given us a great treasure in our history here, and like those who have led the way before us, let’s keep going. Let’s continue to fight for the weak, and to make LaOtto better. Lets keep valuing people, and risking big. And lets keep adapting to the needs of those around us and grow.
First, Cultivate Church fights for the weak.
In 1850, the Wesleyan Methodist connection was just seven years old. The denomination had broken away from the Methodist Episcopal church of America in opposition to slavery.
The fugitive slave law was enacted making it illegal to harbor runaway slaves. If a slave came to you and asked for help, you were required by law to turn them in.
The Wesleyan Methodists had spoken out on slavery but now the people of what would become Cultivate Church, put their words into action. They became an underground railroad stop, on the way to Canada. Since the fugitive slave law of 1850 made it a crime to harbor runaway slaves, men, women, and children were moved under cover of night up lima plank road, now known as old 3. Some historians estimate that Indiana had two to 10 thousand slaves pass through it on the way to Canada.
Aaron Worth pastored here in the late 1870s was one of the youngest conductors of the Underground Railroad. He writes: “Few people of our present generation seem to realize what a mighty struggle the nation passed through in old anti-slavery times. A man’s foes were sometimes in his own household. I could often hear their remarks that I was a “nigger preacher””
Our church didn’t escape unscathed. The danger of smuggling slaves was made only too real by bullet scars from slave owners’ guns in the church’s original door, walls and pews.
Our history says, that we stand up and fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. We stand in the gap. We take the hit. We sacrifice, and we sweat, and we bleed so that others might have just a glimpse of the goodness of God.
We have been a people who are ready to stand up. We have planted ourselves by the river of God’s justice, and say to a broken and messed up world, a world that pushes us to move to accept the pain and problems all around us as some kind of normal, we plant ourselves and say to a world of injustice, no, you move.
We are the voices of hope.
When Jesus declared his ministry to the world he read this:
Luke 4:18-19 - “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD’s favor has come.”
Jesus came to fight for the weak, Cultivate Church does too.
Second, Cultivate Church makes LaOtto better.
In the 1950’s pastor George Ott organized the “LaOtto Community Association” in an effort to keep the community’s post office which the government had threatened to close. The association developed the community center and park west of the church as well as other improvements. Today, our food pantry and community table dinners draw in 80 to 100 people. We want to not only try and solve the symptoms of problems, like pastor Ott we want to solve the problems themselves. We want to make LaOtto better.
We do life together here, with the world around us.
Cultivate Church is here for God, but also to make LaOtto better. Its who we are. Its what we do.
Cultivate Church makes LaOtto better.
Third, Cultivate Church values people.
In the 1880’s LaOtto began sending out people to serve. Five of its pastors became major church leaders, and the church was the site of several general conferences, including one where Augustus Cole addressed the people and talked about the needs in Sierra Leone where he was from. This conference then decided to commission Cole as an elder and to commission missionaries, the very first missionaries our denomination sent.
In 1896 Edna Baker began teaching Sunday school at LaOtto. For the next 62 years she would serve as the leader of this church, by teaching, preaching, being treasurer, and board member. She taught 1st and second grade at the LaOtto school leading three generations of people in this community.
The story of Cultivate Church is the story of people like Lewis Briggs, or Ed Grabill, or Pauline Troyer. People who say I am going to spend my life, by investing in other people. People who say my life is not my own, other people are more important than I am.
Cultivate Church turns out people who believe in each other who buy into the notion of what Jesus mean when he said the two great commands are love God, and love others.
We are known by love.
Fourth, Cultivate Church risks big.
According to Dr. Lee Haines, Cultivate Church (formerly LaOtto Wesleyan) is one of the oldest, if not the oldest structure in our denomination still being used as a church.
The building was named Lee chapel after Luther Lee one of the founders of our denomination, and he was also the one who dedicated our church.
Then just as now, the church relied on its members to be faithful and generous in their giving. The church had been built for the sum of $1000 but more than 550 dollars was not yet paid. That first Sunday, the people asked for gifts and for pledges. When all was added up, the church had given $640.
The church not only faced financial problems but also other problems. During this time, Noble county had a reputation as a nest for criminals who took refuge in the swamps. These highway bandits were known as “black legs” because of the muck on their legs and terrorized the area until on of their leaders was hanged by the state-approved band of vigilantes known as the “swan regulators.”
Lets start a church with no money, in the middle of a swamp, with highway robbers all around.
Cultivate Church did it. We risk big and we gain big. When this church decides to trust and risk for God, things happen that we never expected. We risk by believing.
God tells us in his word that without faith, it is impossible to please him. We know that God gave us our lives, our bodies, this world, this church, not to turn into him unused and carefully preserved, but used up, beat up, changed, and shaken from the ride.
We live by faith.
Fifth, Cultivate Church grows.
In 1849-1850 the LaOtto Wesleyan Church was organized. This gathering of people was originally called the Dekalb Mission and met at the Holbrook school near CR 68. The small gathering of just a handful, merged with other communities to have a network of believers all around this area. They shared pastors, who would travel from place to place on horseback.
In 1859, the group had outgrown the small school and began building a church building called Lee chapel which was located about ¾ mile north of our church’s current location. In 1876 the church moved to its new and present location and was rededicated.
During the depression the youth group and young adults who couldn’t find work dug out the basement and enlarged it to the size of the footprint of the church. All four Sunday school classes met in the sanctuary in different corners, because they had to. In 1965 the church added on and was dedicated again. This project doubled the size of the church and added office space, a large nursery, choir platform classrooms, and included new pulpit furniture and bright red carpet.
In 1970’s the church added another wing to its building making new bathrooms and a foyer. In 1993 the church added on again, more bathrooms, a classroom area too. In 2001, we added our huge multipurpose rom, with a kitchen, classrooms, baptistery, stage, lighting, and praise the lord, air conditioning.
Due to pipes breaking and the needs of growing children and youth ministries, the basement was remodeled in 2008, and the sanctuary was repurposed as a children’s room and painted bright blue. On most Sundays and Wednesdays kids rock out with lights and great worship music, and teens have a place to call their own.
Recently we added another wall and refurbished our nursery and toddler room. We expanded the parking lot, added all kinds of features and tools, all so that Jesus could be made famous in this corner of Indiana.
A lot of people would think that a church that is over 160 years old would be against change but I think it’s the only way we have stayed a church for 160 years.
Our church has outlasted three schools, more than 20 presidents, more than 10 wars and conflicts, countless business and road changes, our church even outlasted the bright red carpet that some of us would still be here when Jesus came back.
Cultivate Church grows, it changes to meet the needs of the people of this community of faith, and the needs of the community around us. It changes to be relevant, to be useful, to be beautiful, to be used by God.
Cultivate Church grows.
These five things that give Cultivate Church identity in the past, give it a mission in the future. These are things we have already done, we have already been about. God has given us a great treasure in our history here, and like those who have led the way before us, let’s keep going. Let’s continue to fight for the weak, and to make LaOtto better. Lets keep valuing people, and risking big. And lets keep adapting to the needs of those around us and grow.