TENNESSEE CONFERENCE REVIEW October 2, 2009
Articles in the October 2nd issue of THE REVIEW
1. Providence United Methodist Church chartered as official United Methodist Congregation.
2. Bill Starnes: From Sharecroppers Son, to Global Ministry Expert.
3. Lois Banks Nunley Conference Center to be dedicated at Beersheba Springs United Methodist Assembly, Sunday, October 18, 2:00 p.m.
4. Bellevue church hits historic milestone. Article reprinted with permission from THE TENNESSEAN.
5. Martin Methodist College Campus celebrates transformation of Old Gym into Gault Center.
6. An Application + $150 = A Planned Mission Trip for your Youth Group—Mt. T.O.P. Ministries
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Providence United Methodist Church chartered as official United Methodist Congregation
On Sunday, September 20, 2009, nearly 450 persons assembled at Stoner Creek Elementary School in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, for official chartering of the Providence United Methodist Church. There were 301 persons who became Covenant Members of the congregation, most of whom were in attendance for the chartering
Dan Lins sets up chairs as part of early set-up team.
Providence Church started monthly worship services on Easter Sunday 2008. The time was 7:00 a.m. and the site for worship was a pavilion in a city park. 149 came to that first worship service, excited about starting a new ministry in the Mt. Juliet area. On September 7,,2008, the new congregation began to meet regularly every Sunday morning using the gymnasium at Stoner Creek Elementary. Selection of a large worship area proved to be wise decision because by the spring of 2009 average attendance at Providence Church was 350. Starting with the final Sunday in September , 2009, the church began offering two services on Sunday morning, 9:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., to accommodate the growing congregation and to ease a possible problem with parking space.
District Superintendent Rev. Tom Halliburton pronounces charter, the first United Methodist Church chartered within the Tennessee Conference in the 21st Century.
District Superintendent the Rev. Tom Halliburton lead the ritual for the chartering and concluded with the words, “In accordance with the laws and Discipline of the United Methodist Church, I hereby declare that Providence United Methodist Church is duly constituted and organized for the glory of God, the proclamation of the gospel, and the service of humanity. Halliburton, who was deeply moved by the enthusiasm and energy of the new congregation, noted, “It feels like the Kingdom of God is working in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. Being part of this service is truly a Holy experience.”
Pastor of the new start-up congregation is the Rev. Jacob Armstrong who worked through and with another area church, Grace United Methodist, to begin Providence Church. Grace’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. Ron Brown, who has been committed to supporting Providence Church, gave the concluding prayer for the chartering and assisted in the service of Holy Communion that concluded the service. The number of Grace UMC members joined members of Providence in the celebration of the chartering.
Pastor Armstrong has had a God-given dream to start a church. He has a heart for seeing people who are disconnected from God find hope, healing and wholeness in Jesus Christ. His most formative spiritual experiences have been mission opportunities in the U.S., Mexico and Spain. Armstrong wants to see a church whose focus in on those outside the walls, serving them and introducing them to Jesus.
During the service Armstrong shared his dreams for the future a few of which are included here. . . and his dreams are obviously shared by the new congregation as heads nodded in agreement:
• To see more and more disconnected persons find Christ
• Continue church growth as more and more persons are welcomed in love.
• Continue to grow spiritually
• Provide a powerful ministry for children
• Work with and support the local schools and teachers
• Work at creating schools in Mexico and Africa—he even visualized a plaque at the schools, “God did this through the people of Providence.
• Provide special ministry to those with addictions
• And, Armstrong added with a smile, “that our men will win the softball championship.”
A year ago, in an article commenting about the start of the new congregation, Armstrong said, “we are striving to be a Jesus-centered community that reaches those who have no church and feel disconnected from God. We are striving to be a people known for welcoming everyone. We are striving to be a church who is not bound by the walls of a building (we don’t have a building!), but instead sees its ministry in the marketplace. We do this in the hope of our God who has given us life through the resurrected One.”
All who worshiped were invited to sign commemorative banner
Bill Starnes: From Sharecroppers Son, to Global Ministry Expert
By: Zan Starnes Martin
Bill Starnes grew up the son of a sharecropper in Lancaster, Tennessee. One of nine children, he helped with the farming, and attended public school there through the eighth grade. His education had a rocky start because he failed the first grade two times, and had to retake English another. He had a stammering problem, and says the only reason he graduated was because he had outgrown his chair. That first grade teacher never would have believed Bill would one day become one of the most eloquent speakers in the United Methodist ministry. After finally graduating the eighth grade, he very much wanted to continue his education, and while there were two high schools in the area, Bill’s family lived too far away to walk to either, and they had no form of transportation.
There was however, a high school with a boarding department in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains named Baxter Seminary, which was run by Dr. and Mrs. Harry Upperman,. Tuition was steep, and money was not readily available in the Starnes very crowded household, but Bill’s Dad enabled him to take a train ride to Baxter and inquire about possible attendance. “So I went to talk to Dr. Upperman in June of 1944,” stated Bill, “and I will always remember I was frightened going into what I thought was a big office, looking toward what I thought was an enormous desk, and here was this distinguished looking gentleman wanting to know what I wanted. I told him I’d like to go to high school, and when he asked if I had any money, I said ‘No sir, I’d like to work my way through if I could.’ He asked me if I knew how to milk, I said ‘Yes sir,’ and he told me I could come and go to school there, but I had to be in charge of the dairy, and had to settle in by the first of July since the boy currently running it was about to graduate. Here I was, fifteen years old, and then and there made the commitment to leave home, and I said, ‘Yes sir, I think Id like that.’”
It was that same year Bill happened to find and read a book in the library of Baxter Seminary that would change his life forever. The book was African Game Trails by Theodore Roosevelt, and Bill Starnes has this to say about the impact the story had on his life; “The stories of big game hunts soon faded from my memory. However, Theodore Roosevelts description of the needs of the African people was indelibly imprinted on my mind. These needs became so real in the weeks which followed that I was able to hear and respond affirmatively when God called me to be a minister and a missionary.”
Not long after that, Mrs. Upperman began working with Bill on his stammering problem. She gave him a speech and asked him to memorize it, and when he had, she led him to the auditorium podium, sat in the very back row, and said she’d like to hear the speech. “Well, I stammered my way through it,” says Bill. “And when I got through she didn’t say a word about my stammering, just said ‘Very good. Id like to hear it again in a day or two.’ And that happened probably every four or five days until one day, I gave my speech without stammering. She also coached him with his diction and voice projection, saying, ‘Who knows, one day you might be making a living with your voice.’”
And sure enough, in his Sophomore year, Bill began a preaching circuit for four Baxter area churches, and then during his senior year, was given three additional churches so that he was preaching twice a month at all seven locations (one of which was only accessible by horseback). This was in addition to milking 14 cows every morning and evening, going to school, providing the leadership of president of his class, rehearsing for the drama clubs senior play, and participating on the debate team.
All of Bill’s eight siblings actually ended up graduating from Baxter Seminary, each one developing a special bond with Dr and Mrs. Upperman. He says they have often discussed, so many years later, what would have been their outcome if it had not been for the Uppermans, and Baxter Seminary. And so it was with great pride near the end of his Senior year that Bill accepted a scholarship to Martin College in Pulaski, TN. At the time, he never would have dreamed he’d come back in 1974 to be president of his Alma Mater, bringing with him his wife Rosemary, whom he’d met right there on the Martin campus in September of 1948.
Starnes treasures a photo of the site where Albert Schweitzer came up with the idea of “Reverence for Life.” The photo was autographed by Albert Schweitzer.
But that is getting ahead of the story. When Bill proposed marriage, he wanted Rosemary to be sure and consider what she was getting herself into, and shared that he would be heading to Africa to help meet the needs of its people in the not too distant future. Rosemary did indeed have to think carefully, but with delight accepted his proposal (much to the dismay of her parents, who said she would forever live out of a trunk). Upon completion of their degrees at Martin College and Scarritt College, and then Bill’s Masters of Divinity Degree at Vanderbilt University, they made their way to Brussels, Belgium, studying French and colonial courses for a period of 14 months. Upon completion of these studies, they traveled to what was at the time Elizabethville, then renamed Lubumbashi, later to become the Democratic Republic of Zaire, now called the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa.
The years Starnes served in Africa as a missionary are filled with more stories than can be counted, but a few include bringing the message of Jesus Christ to the local villagers, founding the Congo Polytechnic Institute, a branch of which evolved into the University of the Congo that currently enrolls nearly 5,000 students, and of being captured by the Communist rebels and narrowly escaping with his life when saved by the village warriors who had heard he was in trouble. But beyond a doubt, the story of spending two weeks time with Dr. Albert Schweitzer at his hospital in Lambaréné in the country of Gabon in West Africa, was life altering.
Albert Schweitzer was a German-French theologian, musician, philosopher, and physician. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of Reverence for Life. He studied the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach and influenced the Organ reform movement (Orgelbewegung). Schweitzer's passionate quest was to discover a universal ethical philosophy, anchored in a universal reality, and make it directly available to all of humanity. This is reflected in some of his sayings, such as:
• “Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.”
• “I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
While reflecting on his time with Schweitzer, Starnes shared incredible insight into the man, and their time together. “While I was in Lambaréné, I had the privilege of making rounds with him as he visited patients daily, and hearing him play several Bach selections every evening. He was an amazing individual, and filled with the spirit of Christianity. I will never forget the time I visited a leper colony with him. I had never been close to a leper and as you might imagine, I entered with some real misgivings. But after we went inside the colony, which was surrounded by a fence, the people surrounded him, touching him, children hugging his legs. I saw him as he continually touched the lepers and that old misconception which I had completely disappeared. Dr. Schweitzer explained that there were fewer and fewer lepers because of a growing practice of treatment with positive results where they could come to Lambaréné, receive treatment, take medications back with them and most would begin to improve.”
“Each day, he and I would have one hour together in his cubbyhole of a closet office within his living quarters. These were some of the most fascinating discussions I have ever experienced with anyone, anywhere. One of the items we discussed several times was his philosophy of Reverence for Life. He gave me a picture of a little island in the Ogowe River and on that picture he inscribed the current date, which was July the 4th, 1963. He told how it was near that island one day as he was going to visit a village that was suffering an epidemic, when his canoe was surrounded by a herd of hippopotamus and it was at that moment that the idea of Reverence for Life came into his mind.”
“I will never forget one early morning when I was awake and could not go back to sleep. I got up, put on my clothes and walked down to the edge of the Ogowe River for a time of meditation. To my surprise Dr. Schweitzer was standing on the bank of the river. I had quietly walked up and stood beside him. Neither one of us were talking, we were looking at a beautiful sunrise, each one of us in meditation and prayer. And then in his guttural German accent, he exclaimed in English, ‘My God (and he pronounced it like got) My Got is alive!’ This utterance of Dr. Schweitzer has come back to me over and over and over again over these last many years since it was my privilege to know him.”
As the world knows, he later developed that idea into a philosophy and wrote books about it, and my hope has always been that one day Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s philosophy of Reverence for Life would become known throughout the world, but to date it has not become one of the principle studies of the theological seminaries of our land. I am very afraid that Dr. Albert Schweitzer will be forgotten, and at the same time, am convinced that his philosophy on Reverence for Life is the only hope for World Peace. If you truly embrace it, you simply could not take another man’s life.”
After Starnes brush with death at the hands of the communist rebels, he settled Rosemary and his four young daughters back in the states, and commuted for another six years back and forth between Africa and Southern, California, putting together a crash training program for the newly independent Congo. Following this assignment, he was asked to serve in the Western and Southeastern jurisdictions of the United Methodist Church as a field representative for the Board of Global Ministries.
He was contacted by his Alma Mater, Martin College, in 1974, was interviewed, and ultimately accepted the position as president, laying the foundation for increasing the campus property, and turning it from a two, into a four-year institution. In May of 1975, he received an honorary doctorate of Humanities degree from Lambuth University in Jackson, TN. After 11 years of service to Martin College, he returned to his initial love of preaching, and served another 11 years back in the pulpit both at Woodbine United Methodist Church, in Nashville, TN, and First United Methodist Church in Tullahoma, TN, where he ultimately retired in 1996.
His retirement celebration was attended by his wife Rosemary, all five of their children (yes, there was a fifth, and final child, a son this time!), along with all of their friends and families. It was a standing room only event.
Not long after retirement, Starnes heard God calling once again. The health care system was woefully lacking in meeting the needs of his surrounding communities, and so in 2000, he co-founded Partners for Healing, a free health clinic for the working uninsured. To date, it has served thousands of people in a five county area, and utilizes over 60 volunteer health care specialists and support staff. Its business plan has been used as a guide for a dozen other similar community health care programs.
Bill Starnes is now entering his 12th year of congestive heart failure, and his heart is slowly losing steam. He was overheard making a request of his longtime friend and head cardiologist at Nashville’s Vanderbilt hospital recently. He said, “Just help me stay strong enough to do just one more thing.” And so continues the commitment of Bill Starnes to be in service to others. As Albert Schweitzer said to him:
"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve."
And as Schweitzer predicted, Bill Starnes has lived a long and happy life indeed.
Lois Banks Nunley Conference Center to be dedicated at Beersheba Springs United Methodist Assembly, Sunday, October 18, 2:00 p.m.
Brick Row at the Beersheba Springs Assembly has been an aging collection of guest rooms with sagging floors and walls as well as some serious structural problems. Thanks to a gift from the will of Lois Banks Nunley, Brick Row has been gutted and transformed into a Conference Room and three updated guest rooms. The Conference Room and three guest rooms will be named in honor of Bishops who have been elected to the episcopacy from the Tennessee Annual Conference.
The newly rebuilt Brick Row also contains a nursery with a bathroom and kitchen, as well as a kitchen attached to the Conference Room. The Conference Room has been designed so it can be divided to serve as two Conference Rooms. Each conference room will have conference tables with desk chairs and will seat 10 or 12 persons each, or when used as a single meeting space, will be able to seat 20. The new layout will be great for cabinet, church staff, and other executive type meetings.
Lois Banks Nunley, before her death, was an active layperson in Ivy Bluff United Methodist Church, and because of her great love for the church, as well as her sister Ester, her gift was presented to Beersheba Springs Assembly.
The Bishops rooms are available Sunday through Thursday nights for clergy and other professional church workers to use as personal retreat space for a nominal charge. The kitchen is available for their use as well.
Local church groups are invited to tour the new facility and attend the Service of Dedication of the Lois Banks Nunley Conference Center, Sunday, October 18, 2:00 p.m. Guest rooms and the Conference Room will be dedicated in honor of Bishop Roy C. Clark, Bishop Robert H. Spain, Bishop Joe Pennel, and Bishop James R. King, Jr. The Bishop William Morris room in the lower hotel will also be consecrated at this time.
The Consecration will remember with thanksgiving the gift from the Lois Banks Nunley estate, but will also give thanks for gifts from West End, Belle Meade, Belmont, and Brentwood United Methodist Churches that allowed the rooms to be fully furnished.
Bellevue church hits historic milestone
By Lea Ann Overstreet Allen, THE TENNESSEAN
This article appeared in the September 23, 2009, issue of THE TENNESSEAN, and is used here with permission. Copyright 2009 by The Tennessean.
Just looking at the church building at 7501 Old Harding Road, passersby might not realize just how much history it holds.
This year marks the 200th anniversary of Bellevue United Methodist Church, a congregation with ties to the founder of the Methodist church and Nashville's origins.
"We're one of Nashville's earliest churches,'' said Margaret Cornell, co-chairman of the church's bicentennial.
"From the standpoint of Methodist history, our first minister was actually ordained by Francis Ashbury. That's very important to us.''
Ashbury came from England to the United States in 1771, eventually becoming one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the country. John Wesley, the principal founder of the Methodist movement in the 18th century, appointed Ashbury to the position.
Ashbury ordained Levine Edney in 1803 to lead a congregation of five families near Pasquo, thus the beginnings of what would become BUMC.
For the past three years, church members have been planning for 2009, finding ways to celebrate the bicentennial.
"It's taken a major committee, between 80 and 100 people, to plan our events," said Cornell, co-chairman of the church's bicentennial.
Church history now on DVD
With the help of member Eddie Vaden, the church's past has been digitally preserved for the future.
"I've have scanned our old registry books and made a database, scanned 4 or 5,000 photographs and architectural plans and converted old videotapes to DVDs for the archives.
"It's important to have a permanent record, because one day paper will go away," Vaden said.
The church has undergone multiple changes, including its name and location, since its inception. In 1910, the church, known as Methodist Episcopal Church South, was at 7544 Old Harding Road. In 1939, the name changed when the three branches of American Methodism, the Methodist Protestant Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, decided to merge under one name, the Methodist Church. So, Belleview Methodist Episcopal Church South became Belleview Methodist Church.
No longer "Belleview''
In 1969, the church moved to its home at 7501 Old Harding Road and, again, to abide by the wishes of the greater Methodist community, the name was changed to include the word "united." The new name, Bellevue United Methodist Church, also reflected the spelling of Bellevue that was used for the area.
In a tribute to its past, BUMC's congregation has held several events throughout the year to mark the church's birthday and will continue Sunday, with its homecoming.
"This will be a gathering of people from far and wide," Cornell said. "Various ministers will come back and former members. We'll also have a very neat group of men called The Band, who mostly play guitars to provide entertainment as we have our great, big old-fashioned dinner on the grounds."
Dinner on the Grounds is a tradition long held at the church. The congregation often came together to eat on the grounds of the church. This year, the congregation will meet across the street from the church at the Masonic Temple.
Church thinks green
In looking to the future, the congregation is determined to make this dinner a green event, part of the church's overall focus on going green.
"We won't use plastic table cloths, because we've got people giving their old cotton table cloths for us to use, and there won't be any Styrofoam," Cornell said.
Although BUMC's turning 200 is important to its congregation, most agree that the most vital part of the church is the congregation.
"This is such a friendly church where everybody knows everybody. It's a very pleasant place to go and worship," Vaden said.
"The major thing that has not changed is the people of BUMC," member Carolyn Becker said. "This has to be one of the friendliest churches I have ever attended."
Martin Methodist College Campus celebrates transformation of Old Gym into Gault Center
On Tuesday morning, September 15th,Tom Gault sat in the shadow of the building once known as the Old Gym, almost directly under the second-floor office window where, as a college student, he had made his makeshift dormitory room 70 years earlier.
A few feet away, facing a large crowd of alumni, trustees, benefactors, faculty, staff, students and interested townsfolk, Martin Methodist College President Ted Brown was telling how a little gymnasium built in 1931 that had been out of commission for two decades had been given a second life.
“Jonathon Swift once said that ‘you can’t make a silk purse out of sow’s ear,’” Brown said before he slowly looked over his shoulder at the breathtaking $3.2 million transformation that is now the Virginia and Dr. Thomas Gault Fine Arts Center.
“Well, I just have to say it: Jonathon Swift didn’t have a design-build team like the one we have at Martin Methodist College.”
Indeed, just 11 months earlier a ceremony had been held on this very site to begin the renovation. At the time, the dank, dark structure with windows either broken or boarded up gave onlookers little clue of what was in store; little did they know how the campus’s ugly duckling would evolve into an architectural swan. And Dr. Thomas Gault was back for this remarkable reveal, a smile on his face and memories no doubt racing through his mind.
“This building is part and parcel with Tom Gault’s Martin experience,” Brown said. “In fact, if you check out that second window from the right upstairs, you may see a nose print still on the glass from young Tom checking out a young lady walking down the sidewalk . . .Virginia Garner from Decherd, Tennessee.”
Brown went on to tell the story of young Tom Gault, who arrived on campus in the fall of 1938, in the first group of men admitted as students. He had come from nearby Cornersville to run the dairy operation that the college had purchased a few weeks earlier from his uncle; in return for his labor he received tuition, room and board. At the start of his second year, he found an empty room on the second floor of the gym and fashioned it into his dorm room.
He would go on to marry Virginia Garner and remain in higher education, eventually becoming Dr. Thomas Gault, a respected scholar in geography and chairman of a nationally known academic program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Through it all, Brown said, Tom Gault never forgot where it all started, and following Virginia’s death in 1997 he began thinking about establishing a scholarship in her memory at their alma mater. Then, a few years later, he learned of the ambitious project to turn his beloved Old Gym into a fine arts facility; he decided he would make a major gift that would name the building in Virginia’s memory and the lobby in honor of his new wife, Ruth, whom he said had given him “a second life.”
“Suffice it to say that no one better represents the vision for Martin Methodist College than Dr. Tom Gault, who maximized his potential and, once a success, never thought twice about giving back,” Brown said. “This is the quintessential Martin story, and it seems so perfect to have it permanently represented in the center of the campus in this tangible way.”
The morning dedication, which concluded with tours of the new facility, was followed on Tuesday evening with a black-tie gala for donors to the project. The 126-seat recital hall was the setting for several brief performances, including music faculty member Mark Hagewood on the new nine-foot Steinway grand piano. Meanwhile, art students demonstrated the many features of the classrooms on the second floor, and guests toured the Barbara and Michael Barton Art Gallery, also located on the second floor.
The Gault Center also is home to 11 of Martin Methodist College’s 12 new Steinway and Sons pianos – earning the college the distinction of being the 96th “All-Steinway School” in the world. In addition to the nine-foot grand in the recital hall, a Steinway is located in the choir rehearsal room, three music faculty offices and five individual practice rooms. The 12th Steinway – a seven-foot grand – is on the Martin Hall Auditorium stage.
Members of the community also toured the Gault Center on Wednesday evening when Martin Methodist College hosted a Giles County Chamber of Commerce “Business After Hours” reception.
The weeklong dedication concluded on Thursday evening, September 17th, with an invitation-only Steinway Concert, featuring pianist Marilyn Shields-Wiltsie of Nashville.
An Application + $150 = A Planned Mission Trip for your Youth Group
Mountain T.O.P. (Tennessee Outreach Project) is an interdenominational, non-profit Christian Mission dedicated to rural life ministry in the Cumberland Mountains of TN.
Currently, we are seeking new churches to join us for our Youth Summer Ministry Program. If you are looking for a mission trip that includes service projects such as building sheds, wheelchair ramps or porches, painting houses and doing yard work and/or working with children in our Day Camp program, we are the camp for you!!!
Why is Mountain T.O.P. Unique?
During the summer, Mountain T.O.P. runs eight consecutive weeks of ministry that begin on Sunday morning and conclude Saturday morning. Youth ministers bring their youth groups from around the country where they join to form one large community. These communities consist of 120-155 youth ages 13-18, adults and college students that are divided even further into what we call Major Groups. A staff member is then responsible for coordinating projects for and leading a Major Group of 25-35 participants. Within Major Groups, volunteers are divided for the final time into what we call Youth Renewal Groups or YRGs. YRGs are determined based on gender, age, church, skill and experience. We do our best to create balanced teams in order for volunteers to meet new people and work together in the most efficient ways possible.
Because of the way our communities are broken down, youth are encouraged to step out of their comfort zones to meet new friends, grow spiritually and acquire new skills. Similarly, youth directors are given the opportunity to be participants instead of leaders. Our Summer Staffs plan and lead all programming out of camp and in camp. You, as the youth director, are invited to seek, listen and learn alongside your youth. And think about it, how often do you get to do that?
For an application that includes available dates, financial and participant guidelines and other pertinent information, please visit our website at www.mountain-top.org. Early Registration begins October 5th. An application and a $150 deposit is all that we need at that time. You can find the 2010 application labeled “2010 YSM Application” under the “Forms and Application” tab at the top of the home page. If you have questions or need more information, please contact Sam at (931) 692-3999 or e-mail Sam@mountain-top.org.
posted by TN Conference UMC @ 7:56 AM
