Pharr Church Celebrates 100th Anniversary

PHARR, TEX. – When Pharr Seventh-day Adventist Church founders George and Hester Garne moved from Nebraska to Edinburg, Tex. in 1921, they didn’t know of any Adventists in the area until they found a piece of Adventist literature misdelivered to their mailbox. When they returned the mail to the correct address, they met the Johnsons, an Adventist family in their neighborhood who told them about a church in Edinburg. 

Since that congregation wanted to be a German-speaking church, some members started an English church in McAllen, Tex. They met inside a mobile wooden building near the train tracks for the first time on Dec. 11, 1923.

To escape the noise of the train, members moved the building in 1926 to the present property in Pharr. The current sanctuary was built in the 1950s. Ned Lynn, one of the members who constructed it, was still part of the congregation until his passing in January 2024. In 1964, Sabbath School rooms were created, and church members added a fellowship hall and community services building to the property in the early 1990s.

A centennial celebration held Nov. 18, 2023, in the Rio Grande Valley gave the Pharr Church a foretaste of our anticipated heavenly reunion.

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By Ryan Pool
Pastor