Good food, rousing music and fine fellowship welcomed the Rev. Charles Atkins, 54, to his new church home Saturday as families of Flat Rock A.M.E. Church in Fayetteville gathered for an afternoon picnic.

Atkins succeeds the Rev. Andrew J. Young, who served as pastor for five years.

Standing before his new congregation, Atkins said, ”I feel like family; we are family, one in the body of Christ... Thank you showing all this wonderful love.”

His wife, Annie, added, “Expect us to do a lot of exciting things together.”

Atkins is a native of Atlanta and is employed by the Atlanta City Police Department as a detective in the Family Violence Unit. He accepted his call to the ministry in 1988 at Trinity African Methodist Church in Atlanta. He was first ordained as a deacon in June 1993 and became an itinerant elder in May 1995. Atkins was then transferred to the East Macon-Milledgeville District-Macon Conference where he served an itinerate elder. He went on to become assistant pastor at St. John AME Church, pastor at Bethel AME Church, and pastor of Texas AME Church all in Eatonton. GA. Atkins was transferred back to the Atlanta North Georgia Conference in May of this year and was soon appointed Flat Rock’s pastor. He is the son of Samuel Dean and the late Fannie Dean of Roswell.

Flat Rock A.M.E. has approximately 150 members reflecting a huge jump in growth since its 1995 membership of just 35 members. It is recognized as the oldest African American Church in Fayette County and has given birth to other black churches in the area including Edgefield, Little Vine and Wilkes Grove Baptist churches.

In a history that traces back to 1854, the forefathers of Flat Rock established a church on Spears’ Plantation, naming it Rock Mountain. The church eventually moved up to the northern sector of the county and was renamed Scufflefield. Ebenezer United Methodist Church now stands on that site.

The current site was donated around the turn of the 20th century by the John Wiley Adams Family. The original church included a classroom where up to 100 students were taught by Irene Glover Curry and served as the only school for black children in the county.

In 1952, the church was remodeled to add restrooms and a choir loft. Finally, in 1978, the current church was completed with the cornerstone being laid in 1990.
Flat Rock’s organizations and ministries include three choirs, Sisters Inspired to Serve and the acolytes.

The church’s goal is “to continue seeking and developing new opportunities for outreach to the community,” according to the church mission statement. “Flat Rock has a solid foundation built on the blessings of God delivered through the foreparents of this church and it is for this reason we stand convinced that we have been, we are and always shall be... ’a great rock in a weary land’ (Isaiah 32.2).”

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