In August 1794, a conference of dissident Methodists ministers meeting in Surry County, Virginia, finalized organization of a new denomination and adopted the name “Christian”.[i] W. E. MacClenny in his 1910 biography of James O’Kelly, the denomination's founder, stated that the O’Kelly Chapel congregation in Chatham County was organized later that year and that it was the first new congregation formed by the Southern Christian denomination. It has not been possible to determine the exact date the first sanctuary was constructed; however, the original O’Kelly Chapel is “generally acknowledged to be the first church building erected by the southern Christians.” [ii] Before building churches, congregations in the new denomination worshipped in former Methodist meeting houses, structures abandoned by the Church of England, private homes, and public buildings such as courthouses and inns.
