Middle Georgia Cold Cases: Macon Church Arson – One Year Later

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Macon-Bibb fire investigators are still searching for the person who intentionally set fire to a church last year. 

Contractors are putting the pieces back together and rebuilding the God’s Power Church of Christ on Cedar Avenue.

It’s a can-do attitude.

“No matter what we face, no matter what the devil brings throughout the years, it’s evident that we just have to mind and keep working,” Kwome Bloodworth, a business administrator at the church, said. “The devastation of the fire has not only effected us physically, but mentally.”

Macon-Bibb County Fire Department Sergeant Ben Gleaton remembers arriving on scene.

“It was coming out through the socket vents on the end of the structure. It was coming out on the gable ends and out through the roof,” he said, walking around the church’s parking lot.

Gleaton says while firefighters were able to put out the fire relatively quickly, finding out who the arsonist could be is taking a lot longer.

“It’s not like on TV where you can go in 30 minutes and pull up DNA and swab for this and swab for that. It’s a very meticulous labor intensive process,” he said.

A process that’s necessary according to Gleaton.

Days went by, then weeks, then months — no leads on a potential arsonist.

“It’s an emotional setback just to watch everything you’ve done — fundraisers and different things of that nature — to be vandalized by fire,” Bloodworth said.

He and members of the church congregation feel the effects every Sunday. They’ve since moved to a temporary location about 30 minutes south of Macon in Danville.

“We just have the attitude of working, working, working, until our lives our ended,” Bloodworth said.

It’s a message the church has had since it opened its doors in 80’s, and as they continue to worship, investigators are still looking for who started the fire.

“Things are trickling in a little bit, we’re just still waiting on that one little piece that we need to put it to bed,” Gleaton said.

“It’s very exciting to see it going back up again, but yet it’s very devastating to kind of re do everything that has already been done,” Bloodworth said.

Contractors expect to finish to rebuilding the church in the next two to four months.

If you have any information on the arson, call the Macon-Bibb County fire Department at (478) 751-9180.