Grey, the preacher, IIRC, was relatively new to the area and the previous preacher was a gung ho, hellfire and damnation type. He had meetings several times a month about what was wrong with other religions and he encouraged his congregation to not associate with any paganistic heathen who wasn’t a true Christian.
The new preacher was trying to change that attitude, but it hadn’t been that long.
In fact, my neighbors, across the street, when to first preacher’s congregation and I had just moved to the neighborhood. We became good friends in a short time. I have one son and another on the way and my son would go over and beg and plead for cookies.
About a month after I moved to the neighborhood, they came home from church and they were really upset. It turned out that the preacher had told the congregation that a Mormon family had moved into the area and that nobody in the congregation was to associate with us. Vera and Bill found a congregation before the next Sunday.
I really miss them. I was their neighbor for 15 years before she died and he went to a nursing home.