Clary K. Butler Sr. and the House of God Church: Why Our History Must Be Preserved
More Than a Century of Faith, Family and Legacy
In 2017, the Florida East Coast Diocese celebrated 100 years of truth. The centennial book called it a time of “remembering” and thanksgiving for those who had labored before us.
Today, that history deserves more than remembrance. It deserves protection.
When I look through these pages, I do not simply see old photographs, names, programs, and church buildings. I see God, Family, Church. I see Us all of US.
Our foreparents served God with gladness. They built when they did not have much to build with. They worshiped in homes, tents, storefronts, packing houses and small wooden churches. Then they purchased land, built sanctuaries, rebuilt after storms, renovated, expanded and paid their obligations. Delray’s history, for example, records members worshiping in a home, then an old packing house, then a brush arbor, before purchasing property and building their church. When the 1928 storm destroyed it, they built again. Dania’s history tells the same kind of story: years of worship under a tent until the members’ labor helped replace it with a small church and eventually an expanded sanctuary.
That is why our history cannot be wiped away.
Some of us may be renters in our home today, but we knew something different in the House of God. Our church was and is our Home. Paid for with no mortgages. Our families gave their time, resources, money, sweat, heart, tears, resilience and commitment to it. We gleaned. We sold dinners. We fundraised. We rallied, and yes, we took pride in trying to outraise the other churches. It was never just about a building. It was about what generations of ordinary people could accomplish together for God.
We were family, connected by common ground: the Pillar and Ground of the Truth. Our parents were friends. Their children grew up together, married one another and raised another generation in the church. From Beginners to the Senior Class, Sunday School helped raise us. The centennial history itself records churches where generations of the same families worshiped together and carried the work forward.
When we said, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord,” we meant it.
Go back in your mind to those little old churches down by the railroad tracks, those little places where we sang Amazing Grace. They may not have looked like much to everybody else, but inside those churches we had a good time, a mighty, mighty good time.
God. Family. Church. It was all in the House.
Whether you are still here or now consider yourself an alumnus, this history belongs to all of us. We will always be the Florida East Coast Diocese of The House of God Which Is the Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth Without Controversy, Keith Dominion.
Our works have been speaking for more than 100 years.
Protect our Legacy:
This is why we must stand against the out-of-control Sixth Administration led by Chief Overseer Clary K. Butler Sr. Our foreparents sacrificed too much, built too much, and left us too great a legacy to allow their history to be erased.
Download the Centennial Book. Remember our history. Protect our legacy.
May you remember Whose you are and where you belong.
Download the Centennial Book
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