Tractors converge on Mt. Chestnut for outdoor church service
FRANKLIN TWP — Sunday service at Mt. Chestnut Presbyterian Church looked a little different on Sunday, Aug. 25. The pews of the century-old church sat empty and still. Instead, the congregation gathered outside, under a nearby picnic shelter with more than a dozen tractors gathered in the church parking lot.
It was the fourth year in a row that Mt. Chestnut held a “Drive Your Tractor to Church” day in late August, around the time students return to school. It is a relatively new event for the Franklin Township church, which has been around since 1858.
“This is the fourth year for this,” said Ken Laughlin, one of the elders at the church. “We’d like to keep it going on every year.”
“We do this here in Mt. Chestnut in August every year,” said Ken Metrick, whose family has been a regular one at Mt. Chestnut since the 1930s. “The farmers bring their tractors, and we have people here from other churches in the Prospect area.”
The idea for Mt. Chestnut’s tractor event can be credited to Laughlin, who got the idea after seeing a similar event at the nearby Mt. Nebo Presbyterian Church.
“One year I was at the Mount Nebo ‘Bring Your Tractor to Church’ Sunday,” Laughlin said. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t that be a good thing to do in Mount Chestnut?’ I talked to our committee on ministry, and they put it all together. All I did was bring the idea, and they did all the work to get the lunch together and advertise.”
Metrick and Laughlin said at least 20 brought their tractors this year, the highest number yet. These included folks who don’t normally attend Mt. Chestnut and came from well out of their way just to be there.
“One gentleman here is from Fombell,” Metrick said. “It took him two hours to get here. His cousin goes to church in Prospect, and so he wanted to come. So he drove his tractor here.”
The tractors themselves ranged wildly in form, function and age, from brand-new machines to a John Deere dating back to 1940, to tractors from brands that don’t even exist anymore, such as International Harvester.
“It grows every year,” Laughlin said. “The first year I think there was about 10. Last year, there was about 16. And this year we have 20. It's been getting bigger each year.”
For this Sunday’s service, the regular sermon led by Larry Maley was followed by a barbecue picnic.
Metrick — who also serves as a director of the Butler Farm Show — stressed that this event serves as a celebration of both God and the local agricultural community.
“This is an ag community. There's a lot of farm people here,” Metrick said. “So they just enjoy getting together to bring their tractors and worship God and have something to eat.”
