At the 1981 Nazarene District Assembly during the Home Missions Rally, Jack and Mary Meadows volunteered to have a prayer meeting in their home to start a church in Pinch, West Virginia. Rev. C. Harold Smith, pastor of Charleston First Church, and his board, appointed John Jenkins as chairman of a committee to get a church organized in that area. Under his leadership, a prayer meeting was started on Sunday afternoon on December 6, 1981, and continued through October 1982.
The Charleston Gazette Metro North, May 25, 1983
New church started in Pinch area
By Martin Berg STAFF WRITER
Residents of the Pinch area have started a new Nazarene church, under the joint sponsor-ship of the West Virginia district
of the Nazarene church and the First Church of the Nazarene in Charleston.
"We organized officially on May 8 with 21 members," said the new church's pastor, Robert Salser. "We started in November 1982 with no members."
The impetus for the church grew out of a weekly prayer meeting led by John Jenkins in the home of Jack and Mary Meadows in Pinch that began in December 1981.
"There were people from the Pinch area going to the church in Clendenin, and people going into Charleston and Davis Creek. We decided we could serve those people as well as reach out to people who weren't going to church at all," Salser said.
The church is housed in the former John Deere tractor dealership in Pinch. Salser said the church had leased the building for six months with an option to lease it for another six, which he said they plan to do. "It's got an acre of ground with it and we eventually plan to buy the whole thing," he said.
The new church reflects a district-wide commitment on the part of the Nazarenes to start new churches. The West Virginia district, which includes the entire state except for some counties in the Eastern Panhandle, met at their camp in Summersville for a Home Mission Rally in August 1981 and started a district church planting committee, Salser explained.
"There are 120 churches in the district and by the end of the year we will have started four new churches," Salser said. Merlin Provance, pastor of the Davis Creek Nazarene Church, is chairman of the district church planting committee.
He added that the West Virginia district plans to divide into two districts, a northern and a southern district upon the retirement of the district superintendent, M.E. Clay of Kanawha City, in August.
Salser, 69, came out of retirement to pastor at the new church. He spent his early years as a pastor in the southern coal-fields. "I started in Miami at Cabin Creek in 1945. I've worked in Logan and other places, but I've been in Clendenin the longest," he said.
Salser said that many of the new church members were children who came to his church in Clendenin, or relatives of families who attended the church.
Salser is pleased with the growth of the new church. "When we started we had 17 in the Sunday school. Easter Sunday we had 75."
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First Officers of the Pinch Church of the Nazarene 1983 – 1984
Chairman, Board of Christian Life – Jack Ross
NWMS President – Dorothy Salser
NYI President – Denise Rose
Church Treasurer – Jack Meadows
Church Secretary – Dorothy Salser
Trustees – Jack Meadows, Chairman; Amos Harper, Harold Harper, Carl Sweeney and Jack Rose
Stewards – Delcie Chin, Elizabeth Pauley, Eudene Acree
Board of Christian Life – Mary Meadows, Virginia Harper, Becky Harper, Loretta Sweeney, Rick Chin
Music Committee – Mary Meadows, Delcie Chin, Elizabeth Pauley, Denise Rose, Kelly Hunt
The former John Deere property was sold in October 1999. Construction started on the current site in October 1999; purchase of the current property was completed in November 1999. The current church was built under the leadership of Rev. Bryant Krepps.
The first service in the new building was conducted on Easter Sunday 2000. Rev. Krepps pastored through Easter Sunday 2004.
Rev. Larry Arbogast began his pastoral duties at New Beginnings Church of the Nazarene in August 2004, and continued until his retirement on November 13, 2022. A gymnasium, adult classrooms, and an outdoor shelter were constructed during his pastorate.
Rev. Charles "Chuck" Pennington began his pastoral duties at New Beginnings on May 28, 2023.
