As people headed toward First Baptist Church Swannanoa on Sunday, it was impossible to forget what had happened to their small mountain community in western North Carolina. Scattered across the landscape were broken pieces of life before the remnants of Hurricane Helene barreled through: chunks of asphalt, shredded trees, fragments of home foundations. Nearby, a search-and-rescue team clambered over debris.
Yet the 11 a.m. hourlong service offered a respite — a chance to worship, to step away from the grief and to soak in shared encouragement and resilience. The church had invited congregants from another nearby church, whose building was destroyed, and encouraged those who had lost their Bibles in the storm to take one from the church.
Melody Dowdy, 46, who is married to the senior pastor of First Baptist, hugged congregants and held back tears. “We’ve tried to create a haven of hope,” she said.
More than a week after the storm ravaged much of western North Carolina, many storm survivors trickled back to houses of faith — worshiping in parking lots and parks, next to mud-filled sanctuaries, and in churches with pews and Bibles but, in some cases, without power or water.
“There is just so much desperation. Lives have been obliterated,” said Winston Parrish, senior pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Asheville. “We needed this moment on Sunday to cry and pray and process.”
In a region steeped in religion, churches right now are more than just a place of worship. Faith leaders of many denominations have transformed their buildings and parking lots into command centers and shelters for emergency workers, and into distribution points for those in need. There, groups hand out water and food and organize deliveries of supplies to stranded communities.
Not long after Helene unleashed record flooding in western North Carolina, many religious groups — inside and outside the state — responded to the disaster, marshaling resources for devastated communities.
They have also spent time scouring their church rolls to pinpoint how many members had evacuated or were unreachable.
Many pastors who were interviewed talked about finding the right words for Sunday amid unthinkable loss — lives, houses, businesses and a sense of stability were gone in a matter of hours. The message, they said, needed to be imbued with hope.
“This is a place deeply connected to faith and to humanity,” Sarah Hurlbert, dean of the Cathedral of All Souls, an Episcopal church in Asheville, said on Saturday. “Because we are in the mountains and isolated, we come together to look out for our neighbors. We need that now more than ever. That is the Appalachia spirit.”
First Baptist Church Swannanoa demonstrated that spirit by opening its doors to neighbors from Swannanoa Free Will Baptist Church.
“That’s all we have to rely on now — is God, our community and our family,” said Beth Mayton, 65, who brushed away tears as she spoke about her church, Free Will Baptist, where she attended as a child and got married.
The storm blew the church’s door open. When Ms. Mayton stepped inside to salvage the Bible that had been with the church since its opening, the mud line was high up the wall and the pews were deep in caked mud. She feared that the congregants would not be able to return to the building.
Jeff Dowdy, the senior pastor at First Baptist Church, became emotional repeatedly as he spoke during the service about the pain and stress of the destruction, as well as the many blessings the church received after the storm.
In the final minutes of the service, as a man sang a hymn and played guitar, dozens of congregants came to the front of the altar, before a weathered wooden cross, kneeling on a small stretch of olive green carpet to pray. They placed hands on one another’s backs, embraced and brushed away tears as they prayed.
“As far as next Sunday goes, I have no idea,” Mr. Dowdy said. But he added one thing he was certain of: “We’ll be here.”
On Sunday, huge pockets of the region were still without habitable homes, passable roads, power, water or cellular service. And churches were among the battered structures. In Marion, about 35 miles east of Asheville, Sunnyvale Baptist Church, the “little white mountain chapel by the stream,” now stands on one of the chunks of ground that did not wash away.
In rural Avery County, near the Tennessee border, the waters rose a foot inside Fellowship Presbyterian Church. On Sunday, members of the tiny congregation sat outside in camping chairs and on the backs of trucks to listen to Cooper Starnes, the pastor, whose message was: “We aren’t in control, but God is. And our God is good and merciful.”
At St. John Baptist Church in Arden, south of Asheville, around 50 people traded stories about how the hurricane had influenced their faith. Several said that, while cut off from loved ones because of power and cell service outages, they had spoken to God more than ever before.
Pastor Gwendolyn R. Jones, who leads the church, said she had felt helpless in the days after the storm not knowing how her congregations fared. Still, she felt a sense of gratitude. Even as many in the region remained without power, the church’s lights came on right when she flipped the switch. Soon enough, there was a long line of cars in the parking lot to pick up generators and other much-needed relief.
The service on Sunday at the Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville was its first since the storm and was held at Trinity Episcopal Church about 10 miles away.
Scott White, the rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, had offered the space after floodwaters had whisked through All Souls, rising to the base of its altar, dumping thick mud inside and scattering the old oak pews of the church, which was consecrated in 1896. Mr. White said roughly three quarters of his congregation had evacuated, whether to avoid the storm or because of the lack of water and power.
Ms. Hurlbert, a priest for 20 years, said she had still not heard from all of the church’s members and had informed the Red Cross about those she could not reach.
At times during the service, she spoke of the power of natural disasters and how, in difficult moments like this, people must love God and help their neighbors.
“When it comes to natural disasters, to the suffering that befalls each of us, we cannot control it.” she said. “What we can do is be ready to figure out, what is the right next step?”
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