By Staff
NILES – The public is invited to attend a special service on Saturday, June 16, in The Old Rugged Cross Memorial Garden in Pokagon, between Dowagiac and Niles.
The service will include the dedication of a communion table custom built and donated by Thomas McCollum, 82, of Augusta, Ga., for The Original Old Rugged Cross Church.
Pastor Patti Haas of Pokagon United Methodist Church will lead the dedication and communion service, which is open to all, beginning at 2 p.m.
It also will include the singing of "old time hymns" and remarks by Old Rugged Cross Foundation board (ORCF) members.
A free-will offering will be taken.
McCollum, a woodworker for more than 60 years, volunteered to build the communion table after reading about restoration of The Original Old Rugged Cross Church in The Baptist Record.
His brother Gordon, of Summerville, Ga., also a woodworker and a sawmill operator, donated walnut lumber for the table.
"It is beautiful wood," the elder McCollum said of his brother's donation.
Tom McCollum researched the style of table used in The Original Old Rugged Cross Church's era.
The table, 41and 5/8 inches long, 31 inches high, is in keeping with that time's rather "plain" designs, he said.
"It is not like today's Lord's Supper tables," Tom McCollum said, "because today's tables usually have lettering in the wood."
McCollum has made more than 70 pulpits and 70 communion tables during his career, as well as constructing church and bank interiors and creating duplicate classical architectural moldings.
Tom McCollum used wood a friend did not want to build the massive crate to ship the table to Michigan.