Posts Tagged ‘ Christianity ’

The Journey at Crowder’s Creek Elementary School – Visited on 10/23

Months ago Churchspotting visited two churches of Lake Wylie, South Carolina in rapid succession: the elder, established, wealthy and sprawling River Hills Community Church (http://wp.me/p1JM4Z-u), and its offshoot relevant (sic) Church (http://wp.me/p1JM4Z-r), founded by former River Hills associate pastor Matt McGarity.  During the River Hills visit Kenny Ashley, another of River Hills Community Church’s associate pastors, announced that he was leaving to establish his contemporary Christian service, “The Journey,” as an independent organization.  In this article we visit a service of The Journey, eight weeks into its life as an independent church.

Like its fellow RHCC offshoot relevant Church, The Journey meets each week in an area school–in this case Crowder’s Creek Elementary.  The morning’s congregation gathers in a sort of carpeted gymnasium space with a small stage.  The corridor outside is set with tables of homemade cookies, supermarket pastries, and decanters of coffee for the gathering’s use.  Inside the carpeted floor is covered with over two hundred and fifty chairs, with the stage before them and tables for the service’s sound crew behind.

Like other meetings styled as “contemporary worship services” visited by Churchspotting, The Journey makes much of its focus on live music.  That morning’s performance was a lone singer and guitarist crooning gospel-pop to the soft accompaniment of The Journey’s congregation, somewhere between 180 and 200 souls.  There was a certain shyness to the congregation’s musical participation—only when the singer put the group on the spot and had them sing a verse with only  his guitar to assist did they begin to truly raise their voices in song.

There was an undercurrent of reliance on community throughout the morning’s worship at The Journey.  That day’s offering, when the congregation was prompted to donate money to the church, was turned into a social affair at Mr. Ashley’s insistence.  The offering bowls were set behind the main seating, and congregants were encouraged to greet each other, to hug and introduce themselves on their way.  “You can’t do the journey by yourself,” he said as the service got underway.  “Our job is to connect you with Jesus and one another.”

The morning’s sermon concerned itself with the “the God-Ordained Life,” and Ashley focused on describing what it meant for his congregation to live their lives based on Christian principles.  He emphasized the importance of having and showing love for everyone, even enemies and those who do you harm, and of showing integrity in business and relationships.

Yet he also made a point of saying that living virtuously is not a matter of simply “trying to do better.”  He equated his congregation’s daily spiritual struggle with being adrift in the ocean.  Living by rules and codes was likened to clinging to a life preserver—in Ashley’s description it might keep you afloat, but it ultimately still left you in the water.  Spiritual peace, in his view, came from accepting God’s love—in his allegory such constituted the hand reaching down from the lifeboat, offering to pull those adrift out of the water entirely.

After the service I conducted a brief interview with Kenny Ashley.  Before becoming a pastor Mr. Ashley spent twelve years as a high school athletic coach and chemistry teacher.  For the last five years of that time he ran his school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and eventually he felt it was time to pursue that calling full-time.  After two years at Erskine College and more at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, he earned his degree and became a full-time pastor in 1983, and has served as such ever since.

On his relationship with River Hills Community Church, relevant Church, and the circumstances of The Journey’s departure, Ashley referred to “differences of vision” that precipitated the splits.  In his own words “He (Matt McGarity) wants to reach people, I (Kenny Ashley) want to disciple them after they’re reached.”  Though both relevant and Journey are independent organizations now, Ashley mentioned that all three churches have mission groups working together on a project to prepare Thanksgiving dinners.

In both the interview and preceding sermon Ashley emphasized the importance of personal freedom in his church’s beliefs.  “You’re free to do anything you want on your Journey,” he said, just before the congregation broke up to make their offerings, “so long as it doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s Journey.”  When asked how that stance pertained to modern American Christianity’s hot-button social issues, like homosexuality and abortion, Ashley’s thoughts were concise.  “We love people and tell them the truth as we see it.  I don’t have the option not to love you.  I don’t think God was ever into rules.”

The Journey itself is a loose conglomeration of worshippers without fixed membership.  Ashley himself was resistant to the idea of any sort of premium or advanced memberships in the church, or a fixed register of attendees.

Though it does not have charitable programs of its own, The Journey transfers 5% of each week’s donations to Mayday, a local charitable organization that assists people in immediate, sudden need, such as families who’ve lost homes to accidents or natural disasters, and connects with other organizations for more long-term support.

Finally, on the relationship of Church and State, Ashley said that he didn’t believe God or Thomas Jefferson ever intended a national American church like the Anglican Church of Britain.  He repeated his belief that people ought to be free to live their lives as long as they do not impose their lifestyle on others without consent.

2011
10/23
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East Clover Church of God – Visited on 10/2/11

The entrance to East Clover Church of God fronts onto SC 55, a two-lane road that winds from east to west through the middle of the small town of Clover, SC.  The church’s drive stands between a combination KFC/Taco Bell and the local Chevrolet dealership, bisected by a wheeled blue billboard displaying the church’s name and times of worship.

Head down the drive, and the seeker finds a wide oval of road garlanded with well-appointed homes, a playground, and an athletic field.  Beyond them a pond glistens in the sun.  The church squats to your left hand, a single story templar’s cross of brick and mortar crowned with a white steeple.  Inside the ECCG is clean and fresh, a relatively new building still under expansion.  On the left-hand side of the entrance hall a wooden table and a wheeled cart stand side by side, set with the church’s bulletins and publications from other Church of God pastors.

Like Greater Life Ministries, visited a few weeks previous to this article, the East Clover Church of God is affiliated with the greater Church of God organization based in Cleveland, Tennessee.  At approximately seven million adherents worldwide, one million of those in the United States, it is the world’s largest association of Pentecostal churches.  The ECCG sits amidst a 32-acre plot of land that includes its long driveway, the three houses and playground equipment lining drive, the pond, and some of the forest beyond.  It is the first church pastored by its current spiritual leader, Rev. Jerry Lee Hibberts Jr., and is home to a congregation of between fifty-five and sixty people.

Beyond the book cart, a turn to the left brings one into the church’s sanctuary.  Like everything else in the ECCG this chamber is clean and well-maintained, two columns of padded seats set before a raised stage, itself lined with two more rows of seating along with facilities for the congregation’s musicians—drums, guitar, electric organ and keyboard piano.  Behind the seating a windowed enclosure holds the church’s two sound technicians.

At the start of the service the main seating is largely vacant.  Most of the congregation is in the stage seating, ready to lend their voices as a choir, all dressed to the nines in their Sunday best.  The church’s membership is skewed towards older members, from middle-aged to elderly, though a handful of children sit at their parents’ sides for the opening ceremonies before being led off to ‘children’s church.’

The service I witnessed began with one of the church’s lay members taking the stage to brief the congregation on recent news in the ECCG.  Next comes a combined Happy Birthday/Anniversary song, apparently sung at the first service of each month.  “May you find Jesus near…” went the song, to a lyric and tune unfamiliar to me.

Then Rev. Hibberts, seated on-stage and off to the side before the keyboard, leads the congregation in prayer.  The pastor’s voice flows with the practiced cadence the classic revival preacher, his voiceover mingling with the murmurs of his flock.  At the ECCG group prayer is done aloud, yet singly, each individual’s divergent words rushing together to fill the chamber with their voices.

As the prayers fade out music takes its place, and here the church truly comes alive.  Even elderly members of the congregation take to their feet, hands raised, clapping and singing as men and women pace around the borders of the seating, waving their arms and chanting in tongues.  Never before have I seen so many old men and women swaying and clapping together.  To the left a bald man in glasses, whom I never saw speak during the service, slaps a tambourine with skill and aplomb, playing in counterpart to the band’s bass section.  Throughout all this the pastor sings along, a tenor worthy of any old-time gospel singer.

At length Rev. Hibberts begins his sermon, though even this is interspersed with more singing and clapping.  At intervals members of the congregation voice “Amen,” and every so often one man in the crowd shouts “Come on!  Come on, Preacher!” egging Hibberts on.  The sermon itself is brief, for all this pageantry.  The pastor remarks on how the Rapture, when God will take the faithful away from the Earth and into paradise, is near at hand.  How the world is set against the faithful, but how Hibberts himself is “not worried about what the outside world thinks; I’m not worried what the religious world thinks.”

By the end of the sermon Hibberts is standing on his Bible to show how it supports him, preaching of ‘spiritual warfare’ against temptation and doubt, and of enduring the trials of this life in the name of faith.  With the sermon’s end the service is over; the congregation trickles out through the door in ones and twos.  As they leave I take my seat on the stage to conduct a brief interview with Rev. Hibberts.

According to him the ECCG was founded five years ago, and began with a congregation of seven.  He bought its associated land and paid for the church’s construction through donations and fund-raising; there has been no financial contribution, he said, from the greater Church of God association.  Of the three houses on the property one is his family’s, the other belongs to Brother Loftus, a retired Church of God minister present at the service I witnessed.  The third was originally owned by another ECCG member family, but that group has since sold the home to a family outside the church and moved out.

On the matter of the Rapture, Rev. Hibberts does not have a specific date but believes indeed that the event is nigh.  He describes it as a “catching away of the church,” and believes that signs and prophecies in the Bible related to this event indicate that it is near at hand.  On more conventional matters he said that the ECCG is not currently involved in any charitable works in the community, but it does donate as a group to sponsor an orphanage in Kenya, as well as giving to provide food during famines in Kenya and to support Kenyan sister churches.

Finally, regarding the relationship between church and state, Hibberts’ beliefs were concise and to the point: “The Founding Fathers, in writing our constitution, never intended to exempt government from religion, but to keep government out of religion.”

2011
10/09
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Living Waters Presbyterian Church – Visited on 9/25/11

Beyond the main thoroughfares of business and travel the Carolina Piedmont’s roads are winding, lonesome things.  The ever-present forest shadows any traveler to either hand, save where the trees are hacked back to make room for human spaces and open sky.  Away from the towns these spaces are usually farmers’ fields or household lawns, whether they be old hardwood ranch homes or double-wide trailers.  The road slides round the summits of hills and hops over stream beds, an asphalt spiderweb cut into the green and brown that surrounds every little cluster of urban life in this state.

Living Waters Presbyterian Church sits on just such a plot carved from the forests, its entrance fortified by a simple cattle gate the likes of which can be found on any of the region’s farms.  A small parking lot surrounds the church itself, along with a field and a modest, scarecrow-watched garden.  The church itself is a plain aluminum-bulwarked rectangle, of the sort used by small manufacturing businesses across upstate South Carolina–before it was bought by the church, the property was used for warehousing.

When I arrived the congregation was still trickling in, availing itself of the coffee and breakfast food laid at one end of the sanctuary.  The interior of the church is plain and unadorned, lit with banks of institutional halogen lights and seated with rows of removable chairs.  Two linked flat screen televisions hang facing the congregation, to display scripture readings or song lyrics throughout the service, or to simply provide a splash of color with their screen savers in the otherwise austere space.

The people of Living Waters Presbyterian are an older set, many of them married couples without children in attendance.  Dress in the sanctuary was casual, and the atmosphere convivial–the members of Living Waters seem to have known each other for some time.  The morning I visited there were approximately 20 worshippers in attendance, but when all the church’s members gather they number around forty-five.

The pastor of Living Waters is Marty Taylor, a former businessman who, by his own description, made religion a part of his life after faith helped him overcome alcoholism in the 1990s.  He has worked as a pastor since 2000, and began ministering to the congregation that now worships at Living Waters in 2010.  He is a congenial, bespectacled middle-aged man, welcoming to strangers, who began the tradition at his church of worshippers voicing their prayers aloud, in turns, so that their fellows can join with them.  On the matter of Church and State, Taylor said that “God has instituted governments for the people, all governments are answerable to god.”  He believes that there is a certain amount of overlap between Church and State simply because there are religious people in government, and their beliefs inform the policies they enact: “Faith naturally expresses itself.”

The morning I visited, Rev. Taylor was dressed just as casually as his flock–moreso, as he wore a Brett Favre football jersey throughout the service in anticipation of the church’s “Football Kick-Off lunch” held after worship that day.  Yet his sermon that day, entitled “…Really?”, was stern.  He claimed the congregation was not personally committed to its church–Living Waters needed more volunteers to maintain the grounds, more donations to pay for its property’s upkeep, more activity from the congregation in general.  The church’s bulletin showed that Living Waters was over $500 behind on its weekly financial needs the week before, and over half the congregation was absent from church the day I visited, not because they could not come but because they did not attend every week.

Before Rev. Taylor arrived the congregation of Living Waters worshipped in a rented space at Bethel Elementary, not unlike other groups visited by Churchspotting.  The church bought its current space in 2010 and moved into the warehouse plot in February of 2011.  The church’s expenses grew considerably with its new property, but the congregation itself has not, and now financial troubles lurk in the background of its services.  Yet it’s been less than a year since Living Waters moved to its new location, and Churchspotting has certainly visited smaller churches that maintain equal facilities.  Living Waters remains a troubled church, but its future remains undecided.

2011
10/02
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Passage of the Day for 10/1 and Tomorrow’s Update

Today’s reading comes from the Qur’an, Surat an-Naml (The Ant), 27:52.

Tomorrow’s update is Living Waters Presbyterian Church.

2011
10/01
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Greater Life Ministries, Part II – Visited Again on 9/25/11

Greater Life Ministries of Clover, SC holds two full worship services each Sunday: one in the morning from 10AM to Noon, and another 6PM to 8.  On the weekend of 9/18, visited on behalf of Churchspotting to observe the morning service; a week later I returned to observe the evening devotions.

The crowd is lighter at GLM in the evenings–the morning service boasts up to two hundred worshippers, but the evenings draw somewhere between 100 and 150 into the cool half-light of the sanctuary.  The congregation’s welcome was even warmer this week, when I was known to a surprising number of Greater Life Ministries’ worshippers as ‘that blogger’, than it was the week before when I might’ve appeared as a possible new member for the church.

The lobby where members of GLM wait before the service begins in earnest hummed with churchgoers young and old who seemed eager to welcome the stranger back, shake his hand, and wish him well.  Truth be told, there was no shortage of good-feeling or welcome for anyone in that hall–the most striking characteristic of Greater Life Ministries must be how freely the congregants there express their emotions, and the last fifteen minutes before a service begins is full of hugging, back-slapping and welcoming on all sides.  The sense of community, even before worship begins, is palpable.
That night’s sermon arose from themes I’d seen taking shape on my first visit a week before.  Pastor C. Milton Smith still drew from the allegory of the “wall” that underlay his sermon on the 18th–if anything, he’d refined the concept considerably over the previous week.

On my previous visit Rev. Smith drew copiously from the Book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament, in which the eponymous Nehemiah directed the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls after that city’s invasion and overthrow by the armies of Babylon.  The Sunday I watched as Smith appointed his “wall-builders,” a half-dozen older men from the congregation to each of whom he presented a brick and a Bible, which he named “the sword of the Word.”  That week the “wall” served as an allegory for the unity and community of the Church, and its struggle to protect itself from what the pastor described as the surrounding society’s corruptive influences.

This week the function of the “wall” broadened further.  Rev. Smith described in detail how the battlements of Christian moral rectitude in America were torn down over the last several decades, leaving the souls of its people open to corruption.  He criticized pastors in California who’d opened their church for a performance by Lady Gaga, “in her nudity and ungodliness,” and associated her act and similar media with an overall moral decline in the United States.
To counter the climate of unbelief and sin he attributed to modern society, Rev. Smith called on his congregation to work on rebuilding the wall of their faith: “We need to build a wall and say to the devil, ‘The families of God belong to God.'”  Time seems to be running short for such spiritual self-correction–almost in passing, the pastor remarked on how the End Times grow near.  As a sign of this he pointed to the Church’s rising generation, whom he claimed would be a new generation of evangelists preaching in the strip malls and fast food restaurants of America, winning hearts to man the “wall” in preparation for a final reckoning with the forces of evil.

Like my first visit to Greater Life Ministries, the evening service was peppered with moments to set it apart from other religious groups observed thus far.  At times the entire congregation went silent as the church’s music coordinator broke into tearful glossolalia; Bobby, a particularly fervent member of the church, paced the back row of sanctuary, murmuring hosannas under his breath; towards the service’s end the pastor called upon the whole congregation to join him before the stage, heads bowed, as the men of his “Armor Bearers” laid their hands upon his shoulders and joined him in directing the church’s prayers.

The Armor Bearers drew my particular interest.  One of their number, a younger convert to the church named Jake, explained to me who the armorbearers are and what they do. They represent a small sub-group within the church, approximately eight lay members plus two seminary students, who act as a kind of support staff for Rev. Smith.  The society draws its inspiration from Old Testament passages that describe the kings of Israel making war alongside their rather more literal armorbearers, the squires who prepared the king for battle and guarded him on the battlefield.
The group formed less than a year ago, prompted by complaints from Rev. Smith that he felt he was taking on all the burdens of the church alone.  The armorbearers answer that complaint by acting as a “spiritual pillar that holds him up,” to use Jake’s words.  They pray with the pastor before each service, as well as during the week when Rev. Smith calls upon them.  They provide him with moral support when the pastor feels overwhelmed by his tasks, as well as acting as a kind of public relations buffer for Rev. Smith–Jake described how the armorbearers sometimes have words with detractors and the discontented within the church.  Each member of the armorbearers must read “Where are the Armorbearers,” by Bryan Cutshall of the eponymous Bryan Cutshall Ministries.

After the service on the 18th, Rev. Smith sat for a brief interview with Churchspotting.  As a young man he served in the US military, as an enlistee during the Vietnam War and as a soldier of the National Guard afterwards.  During his sermons he describes at length how he turned to Christianity during his time in the National Guard; he received his theological education at East Coast Bible College, a seminary affiliated with Lee College of Tennessee, which is in turn affiliated with the Church of God, Cleveland, TN, an international Pentecostal denomination with some seven million adherents worldwide, over a million of them within the United States.  Greater Life Ministries is one of several churches in the York County area affiliated with the TN Church of God.  He has served as a pastor for the Church of God for the last thirty years.

Regarding his church’s charitable works, Rev. Smith described a battery of mission programs as well as bi-annual program where church members service the cars of those in need, free of charge, with a DMV representative on hand to provide certified inspections.  Finally, when asked about the proper relationship of Church and State, Smith said that a division exists between the two but that Christianity should have an effect on government; govt., meanwhile, should no legislate to churches.  Greater Life Ministries disagrees with certain extant practices of the US government, particularly on the issue of abortion, but acknowledges the government’s secular authority.

2011
09/30
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Passage of the Day, 9/28

Today’s passage comes from the King James Version of the New Testament, Romans 8:1-2.  This brief reading contains one of the Christian ideals that set the early church and Roman authorities at odds.  In a modern context it can serve metaphorically in describing the Christian belief that faith in their God can allow them life after death in paradise.  Yet in the early centuries of the Common Era this passage manifested very literally in contemporary Christian society.

In pagan Rome religion and government were inextricably bound together.  Priestly offices were sometimes directly linked to governmental ones, and men elected to some municipal seat might automatically become priests to whatever god presided over their new title.  Many Roman emperors were deified after their deaths, and the worship of these god-emperors was both a function and objective of the state.  The military was rife with internal religious orders dedicated to this or that god of war, not to mention how the Roman military’s general purpose–waging war on the empire’s borders or in the civil wars of the emperors–ran counter to the then small Christian sect’s pacifist ideals.  Even conventional business life was full of pagan rituals and ceremonies that the Christians swore vows to abstain from.

Christians who followed instructions like those recorded in Romans 8 tended to exclude themselves entirely from the workings of the Roman state and military, to preserve their spiritual state untarnished by what they viewed as pagan idolatry and cares of sinful flesh.  This stance earned them no little condemnation among their fellow citizens, who viewed the Christians’ refusal to take part in the common defense as something between cowardice and treachery.

Instead of involving themselves in the work of government, business or defense, the growing Christian community focused inward on expansion of their religion and its growing number of charitable works.  Ambitious Christians who, if born into a pagan family, might have struggled for advancement in any of the pagan-dominated fields, instead set whatever talents and resources were at their disposal to advancing–and advancement within–the church.  Their well documented efforts to provide food, shelter, and primarily Christian education to the poor filled a void left by the increasing drain cyclical war and economic depression left on the Roman state.  It was only in the 4th Century CE, after Christianity became the dominant religion of the empire, that Christian abstention from the fields of business, government and war really started to recede into oblivion.

2011
09/28
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Greater Life Ministries, Part I – Visited on 9/18/11

Travel south down Highway 321 from the town of Clover a few miles.  Keep your eyes to the left.  Eventually the trees shouldering their way up to the roadside retreat, hacked back to reveal a broad green field.  At the top of the gentle, grassy slope a building rises, its tan, unadorned metal walls framed by the hewn edge of the surrounding forest.  A sign by the roadside announces the property far more effectively than its boxy, aluminum exterior: this is the home of Greater Life Ministries, a Pentecostal church whose staid exterior hides the most fervent practice of faith yet recorded by Churchspotting.

The entrance to Greater Life Ministries is an antechamber scattered with low chairs and tables, notices tacked to bulletin boards, and summer camp t-shirts laid out in ranks on fold-out tables, where members of the congregation prepare morning coffee and gather before worship.  Contemporary paintings of biblical scenes adorn the otherwise bare walls; two sets of double doors in the far wall lead to the real purpose of the building, the sanctuary.

Services at Greater Life Ministries take place in a single chamber that comprises a majority of the church building: the sanctuary, a cavernous space filled with rows of padded, portable chairs in lieu of traditional pews.  A low stage dominates the far wall, while speakers from the church’s audio equipment hang from the ceiling.  Though not an inch of the building was built of bricks, the wall behind the stage boasts an uneven coating of false brickwork raised by the congregation in recent weeks, hung with a banner displaying a passage from the Book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament: “So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together to the half thereof: for the people had a mind to work.”

The people who trickle into that sanctuary wear their Sunday best for the service, whatever that shakes out to.  Some look as though they’d be at home in the office parks of nearby Rock Hill and Gastonia townships; others more clearly resemble York County’s working class, mustering the best they can to greet the morning.  The congregation represents an even spread of age and sex, and is the spiritual home for young and old, families and the unattached.

Once the congregation takes its place around 10 AM, scattered in files and clusters throughout the ample seating, the music begins–and does not wholly end until noon.  Though it lacks a full band, the church does boast a music coordinator and musician, and between themselves and the church’s sound system those two manage a complimentary tune for every turn of phrase and recitation of scripture that follows the beginning of worship.  Added to the music is the stylized, theatrical delivery of the church’s preachers, which can shift from the easy cadence of a stage comedian to the howling fury of a revivalist.

Any visitor to Greater Life Ministries must be prepared for the sheer emotional intensity the service can reach.  At his highest highs the pastor, Rev. C. Milton Smith, storms across the stage, roaring his sermon to constant and enthusiastic musical accompaniment as members of the congregation chant in tongues, or sing, or simply pray aloud.  For two hours the whole congregation throws itself into the experience, praying with an open fervor entirely at odds with the quiet, introspective services of most other area churches.

The service observed by Churchspotting was unique beyond even the usual fervor of Greater Life Ministries, according to members of the congregation that day.  The preceding Sunday, at GLM’s evening service, Rev. Smith was apparently “seized by the spirit” and inspired to single out a half-dozen older men of the congregation.  At the morning service on the 18th, he called these men out again to address them before the whole congregation.

Hearkening back to the passage from Nehemiah hung upon the stage wall, Rev. Smith called these men his “wall-builders,” and gave them each of them a Bible, which he named “the sword of the Word.”  The ‘wall-builders,’ he declared, would be the strong supports of GLM’s community, building up the church as book of Nehemiah described the rebuilding of Jerusalem after its sack by the Babylonians.

The end of the morning service is a breathless affair–the pastor, not mention some members of the congregation, has likely shouted himself hoarse after two hours upon the stage.  Come noon the worshippers tickle out of the sanctuary to rest and eat, but their reprieve is only temporary–they’ll return with sunset to take part in the church’s evening service.

—–

This concludes Churchspotting’s first article on Greater Life Ministries, Clover, SC.  Later this week we’ll be proud to give you Part II, with coverage of an evening service at GLM as well as information from our interview with Rev. Smith.  Stay tuned.

2011
09/25
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Tomorrow’s Update

Tomorrow Churchspotting visits Greater Life Ministries, a Pentecostal church south of the town of Clover.

2011
09/24
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Allison Creek Presbyterian Church – Visited on 8/28/11

An old white-washed church sits upon a hill overlooking the broad margins of the new highway between Lake Wylie and Rock Hill, SC.  As one approaches from the road, to the left hand sit the timeworn stones of its traditional cemetery, fringed with outbuildings and halls.  Those constructions are the products of a long, slow, continual expansion of the church’s facilities: founded in 1854, Allison Creek Presbyterian Church expanded organically with the decades and adds new wings as time and funds permit.  Its original wooden sanctuary is now but one of many structures that comprise the church.

Allison Creek retains the trappings of its antebellum heritage.  A balcony still hangs above its small sanctuary where slaves once worshipped above and behind their masters.  Up there the original pews remain, carved by slave labor a century and a half ago and built at a slant to ensure that anyone falling asleep during the service would be unceremoniously dumped from their seat.

Come the last few minutes before 10 o’clock the congregation files into the old sanctuary, greeted by its Spartan white walls and the chatter of their fellow worshippers.  There is a convivial atmosphere in an Allison Creek service born of long familiarity, yet even strangers can expect a warm welcome.  Included in the service is a practice called “the passing of the peace,” during which the congregation takes time to welcome visitors and express their appreciation for their shared devotion.

Beyond twin rows of pews the floor rises to lift the church’s altar above the congregation, yet even it is plain: an unadorned cross of precious metal, with the ceremonial plate and goblet set before it.  Behind the altar a few simple glass windows gleam from an alcove, while to either side rest the chairs of the church choir, a half-dozen strong, the organ, and an assembly of other instruments from bass guitars to bongos that were left untouched during my visit.

The congregation that morning was a relatively mixed crowd dominated by families of the working middle class, all dressed in their Sunday best.  There are many couples with children at Allison Creek, and they join their parents in the opening hymns of the service before departing for Sunday school or the nursery.

That morning was a special one for Allison Creek Presbyterian.  Each prayer was recited by a member of the church youth group; what is more, each prayer was an original work, composed by the teenagers in question and their families.  There is a strong current of communal involvement at Allison Creek, where each service is complemented by post-worship Bible study for both adults and children, and though the congregation is not large it boasts a sizable cohort of deacons to greet congregants at the door and see to its temporal needs.

It is only after the congregation has spent some time at song and prayer that the pastor of Allison Creek Presbyterian, Sam McGregor Jr., makes his presence felt.  Rev. McGregor is a tall, thin, middle-aged man.  By looks he seems a fusion of Mr. Rogers and Dana Carvey, of Wayne’s World and Saturday Night Live.  He has a high pitched, soft voice, and though he puts on his pastor’s robes for formal occasions for most services he wears only a collared shirt and slacks, with a stole draped across his neck emblazoned with the symbols of his office and religion.  When not speaking or taking some active role in the service Rev. McGregor takes a seat with the congregation in the foremost pew.

That morning Rev. McGregor’s sermon centered on a piece of scripture that, by his own admission, is often simply passed over by readers of the Old Testament.  It told of how, upon seeing a Hebrew laborer being beaten by an Egyptian, the prophet Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body.  When he heard his crime whispered of by other Hebrews nonetheless, he skipped town and went into hiding.

While in hiding he chanced upon a well, where he saw a group of women attempt to draw water for their flock of goats.  When a group of male shepherds drove the women away to use the well themselves, Moses took it upon himself to draw the water and provide it to the women and their flocks.  McGregor used this passage to illustrate how Moses acted whenever he saw injustice done, impressed upon his congregation that like him they should never tolerate injustice where they encounter it.

After the service, and some time spent sitting in on one of the church’s bible study groups, I conducted a brief interview with Rev. McGregor.  He is a native of Columbia, South Carolina, a little over an hour’s drive from his current church, who abandoned an early interest in dairy farming to study divinity and earn his credentials as a Presbyterian minister.

From him I learned that beyond its robust internal community Allison Creek operates several charitable works in the community: an annual donation of supplies to local schools; a free music fest; the church parking lot is set up as a campground with electricity and water for Habitat for Humanity caravans; and, recently, a project that deserves special recognition.

Not long ago members of Allison Creek Presbyterian rediscovered a forgotten cemetery in the woods behind the church.  This was identified as a slave cemetery, a counterpart to the plot where their owners were interred beside the church.  Volunteers from Allison Creek refurbished the slave cemetery, to the point that it is now a state historical site.  Just before my visit Allison Creek conducted a joint worship service in the cemetery with two other local churches descended from the men and women buried within.

Finally, I asked Rev. McGregor about the proper relationship between Church & State.  His response was that the government should protect all citizens’ right to gather and worship.

2011
09/11
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The Bridge at Clover High School – Visited on 8/21/11

Clover High School sits at the eastern edge of town in a sort of semi-rural no man’s land ringed by housing developments on one side and forest on the other, all bifurcated by the two-lane asphalt ribbon of Highway 55.  It was my own high school as a young man, and as I pulled into the sprawling student parking lot on the morning of the 21st, as I had on so many other mornings long past, I found myself beholden to memories untouched for years on end.

The Bridge is a weekly Christian service held in the high school’s cafeteria.  Unlike Oakridge Middle School, here there are no special concessions to public performance.  The church’s audio-visual equipment stood in a cleared space along the southern wall of the cafeteria, wires snaking here and there from microphone stands for the church’s live band.  Opposite the performance space was a spread of coffee and donuts for the congregation’s benefit, while between food and music sat a half-dozen low octagonal tables usually filled by squamous, gossiping high school students during their lunch periods.

That morning the cafeteria tables were ringed with a different sort: couples and families, a few dozen in their casual street clothes.  Clover is not a wealthy town; many of its families live in cramped, cheap housing along twisting asphalt roads, overshadowed by the outstretched boughs of century-old trees.  The congregants at The Bridge that morning were representative of the tenuous economic space between grinding poverty and the petite-bourgeoisie complacency of a community like River Hills—hanging on, despite the collapse of the region’s industry decades ago and the anemic national economy, a sample of the lower end of middle class.

The Bridge was first started as an auxiliary program of the First Baptist Church of Clover two years ago, and has existed since then as a sort of colony of that older religious community.  It rents its weekly space from Clover High School; in addition, the congregation donates school supplies to CHS and on some days provides free lunches for its teachers.  On October 2nd The Bridge ended its two-year probationary period and officially became an independent church in its own right.

The first half of a service at The Bridge is a performance by the congregation’s band, local amateurs who took their seats among the congregation when their songs were done.  Their music had the tenor of a Christian garage band overlaid with Southern Rock—the last song of their set was a cover of “Sweet Home Alabama” with reworked, Christian lyrics.

As the band repaired to their seats the pastor of The Bridge, Kevin Witt, took their place.  He is a short, heavy-set man; in fact, he looks very similar to the comedian Patton Oswalt.  That morning his sermon regarded the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Through that story Rev. Witt impressed upon his flock the importance of helping those in need, regardless of their background or the relationship between them.

After the service I conducted a brief interview with Pastor Witt.  He is a transplant to Clover, having arrived five years ago from Ft. Worth, Texas.  His church is small but active—adult members can volunteer to join small groups that meet for three-month semesters of shared bible study.

The Bridge is active in providing charity to the needy of Clover: among the projects he mentioned were an adopted stretch of highway maintained by the congregation; a monthly ‘laundry party’, where the congregation pools some money and spends a day paying for all the laundry loads and detergent at the town laundromat; volunteering and donation at the Clover Area Assistance Center; as well as a mission project required of each of the church’s small group classes by the end of their semester of study.

As always, I asked Rev. Witt what he thought of the relationship between Church and State.  After a moment’s deliberation he replied that he acknowledged the division between the two, but preferred to focus on his charitable and spiritual duties, and leave the politics to the politicians.

2011
09/04
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