A few hours after Thursday’s state funeral for Jimmy Carter at the Washington National Cathedral, the former president’s modest hometown church will hold a private memorial service before he is buried in Plains.
Maranatha Baptist Church was founded in the late 1970s, holding its first service on May 22, 1977, during the first year of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, according to the church website.
It is a small red brick church (reported capacity of just over 400) with stained glass windows, a white steeple and wood trim and a broad grass lawn. The name “Maranatha” means “Lord, Come!” in Aramaic.
Connections to the Carter family are many. Rosalynn Carter, the former president’s wife, who died in 2023, was a deacon who also taught Sunday school. She also helped found a food distribution ministry for local families in need, according to the church’s website.
In addition to teaching Sunday school classes, Jimmy Carter was known to help with odd jobs, including mowing the grass. Carter, a famous homebuilding volunteer, crafted a wooden cross that stands in the sanctuary. He also made wooden trays used to collect offerings during church services.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
The Carters became a regular presence at Maranatha after leaving the White House in 1981.
In recent years, until 2019 health problems for Jimmy Carter and the COVID-19 lockdown, the Sunday morning church service and Sunday school became a tourist attraction, with volunteers coordinating the parking and a line for a coveted seat in the sanctuary that required arrival in Plains as early as 6 a.m. on many Sundays.
Entry to the church by visitors began with a Secret Service screening on days when the Carters were attending.
The Sunday school classes swelled beyond capacity after Jimmy Carter’s cancer diagnosis in 2015, filling the sanctuary and an overflow room with a TV screen view of the class. The Carters would stay to pose for pictures with visitors.
Sunday school at the church is now taught by the Carters’ niece, Kim Carter Fuller.
The former president died Dec. 29, after nearly two years in home hospice. Although the former first couple rarely ventured out in public in recent years, they were able to watch Sunday school and church service from their Plains home.
Without the Carters in attendance, there have been many Sundays in recent years when fewer than 30 people came to Maranatha. Plains barely has more than 500 residents, spread across about a dozen churches.
The Rev. Tony Lowden, Carter’s personal pastor, who came to Maranatha in 2019 as its first Black pastor, left in October 2021. For more than two years, services were conducted by a rotating collection of visiting preachers.
Last year, the church named the Rev. Ashley Guthas as its new pastor. Guthas, Maranatha’s first female pastor, previously was associate minister to Families with Children and Youth at Northside Drive Baptist Church in Atlanta.
Listen to a 2018 podcast with reporter Jill Vejnoska about the Carters’ church
About the Author
