Religion Unplugged

🌪️ Symbol of hope: Church’s stained-glass windows survive monster tornado 🔌

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By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged

SULPHUR, Okla. — A miracle. That’s what Pam Chitwood calls it.

To her surprise — and delight — the First Christian Church’s century-old stained-glass windows survived a monster tornado that ravaged this southern Oklahoma town this past weekend.

I met Chitwood unexpectedly on Wednesday at the edge of this rural community’s battered downtown.

I was gazing at the pile of crumbled bricks and twisted limbs outside the majestic church — and wondering whom I might call for details on its history — when the 62-year-old elder drove up.

She sported a “Sulphur Strong” sticker on her bright yellow work vest and greeted me with a weary smile.

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“Are you a member here?” I asked, curious about the church, which took a beating as the EF3 twister struck Sulphur — about 90 miles south of Oklahoma City — late Saturday night.

She nodded affirmatively.

“I’ve been a member here since I was 4 years old,” she said of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) congregation, her spiritual home for 58 years.

Chitwood can’t help but become emotional when she talks about the church where she has witnessed so many baptisms and attended countless weddings and funerals.

Her story reminds me of the ones I heard after a different tornado destroyed or heavily damaged a half-dozen historic churches in the central core of Mayfield, Kentucky, in December 2021.

Here in Sulphur, the twister ripped through the town of 5,000 during an outbreak of severe weather that killed four people and injured about 300 in Oklahoma. One of the deaths occurred when the roof collapsed at a downtown bar a short walking distance from First Christian.

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This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.

Photo by Audrey Jackson