Saturday, November 21, 2009
Answering each other's prayers
Members of two Southeast Roanoke churches have shared meals and worship services as they prepare to join together as a single congregation.
JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times
Kathryn Witt hugs Billy Pierce during a Wednesday night service at Family Bible Fellowship in Southeast Roanoke. Grace Community Fellowship, a congregation of about 30, will officially join Family Bible Fellowship's congregation of about 75 later this month.
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Pastor Jay Beckner leads a congregation of about 30 members, many of them young parents of children or teenagers who sing along to an acoustic guitar at Sunday services.
And pastor Barry Witt leads a congregation of about 75 members, many of them retirees or almost retirees who sing along to a piano and choir on Sundays and quilt together on Tuesdays.
It was in recent months that the two Southeast Roanoke pastors, longtime friends, realized their congregations were the answer to each other's prayers. On Nov. 29, the members of Beckner's Grace Community Fellowship will join Witt's Family Bible Fellowship in the unusual -- though not unlikely -- marriage of two churches.
"You can struggle separately, but you can join and together accomplish ministry," Witt said.
The catalyst was this: Beckner, a native Roanoker and father of three, had trekked with his wife to a small city in Mexico about four hours from the Texas border on several mission trips. On a trip this year, he said, a congregation -- and God -- called him to a serve a church on the U.S. side of the border.
So, the pastors say, God revealed to them that the two congregations could work as one with Witt at the helm. But changes in church, as in life, are never easy.
"I was scared to death at first," said Jason Rucker, the 29-year-old youth pastor of Grace Community Church. "But then I had this burst of enthusiasm to do it ... God honors faith, and sometimes he chooses the hard things for us to do."
For Beckner, the move to Presidio, Texas, a town of 4,000 people overlooking the Rio Grande, is the hard thing to do. It will mean cutting his pay by almost half, and uprooting his 17-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son. He describes his feelings about moving in January with words such as nervous, scared and worried. But he has faith.
"I trust not in my knowledge, but in his [God's] wisdom," Beckner said.
Meanwhile, the challenges at Family Bible Fellowship were of a different flavor. Few people are involved in ministries, so those that are wear several hats in the music, children's, youth and nursery ministries. An injection of young members and a pooling of resources help balance that out, Witt said.
The congregations have met since late October at Family Bible Fellowship's storefront church at Riverland Road and Garden City Boulevard. In the joint services, Witt has compared Beckner's leaving to Genesis 22, where Abraham is tested to sacrifice his son. He has also invoked Genesis 23, where Isaac is comforted by his new wife, Rebekah, to the happiness the two churches can bring each other.
The members have held potlucks after Sunday services, and have sung together with the praise and worship band as well as the piano and choir. By the time they officially unite, at least, most members will know one another.
"This is something that's bathed in prayer," Witt said. "You just see the hand of God at work."
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