CHURCH STAFF

Pastor

Secretary

Annie King

Pianist

Carolyn Peters

Choir Director

Joanna Reesman

SESSION MEMBERS

Class of 2017

Stuart Clive

Joe Lewis

Donald Smith

Sandi Thompson

Chris Mize

2018

Brandon Douglas

Bill Mote

Chandler Salmon

Tracy Pirkle

A Monthly Publication of the Bethany Presbyterian Church

“A Father’s Way” Elder Stuart Clive

June 2017

Bethany Spirit

Inside this issue:

Session Reports 2-3

Calendar 4

Volunteers/Prayer List 5

Recent Highlights 6–7

Report from Pakistan 8-9

I grew up in rural Newton county as part of a family of six, in an era when folks made their living working in cotton mills and any means

they could to survive. I vividly remember a time when I was younger that my father made a decision to allow another family who were en-during tough times to move into our home and stay for several months. The husband had lost his job, the wife had health problems, and they had three young children that were homeless. I was so angry with my dad that he had allowed these virtual strangers to share our home. I resented that my younger siblings had to share sleeping quarters with the other children, I resented that the house was overcrowded, there was no privacy and dinnertime had become a nightly chaotic event; heck we barely had enough to feed our own household. The family re-sided in the Clive household for what seemed like an eternity, but was actually about six months. The father finally found work and the family moved on. I remained angry with my dad for subjecting his family to this perceived inconvenience.

As the years passed, I became more and more ashamed of my atti-tude and feelings that I had shown towards my dad. Today, I realize that this was one of the most valuable lessons my father taught me; the gift of hospitality, the gift of giving and helping others when you thought you didn’t have a lot to give. My dad was special in that way. He truly had a good charitable heart and was never consumed with material possessions. He loved people and people loved him.

As I grew to adulthood, outside of accepting Jesus Christ as my personal savior and receiving the gift of eternal salvation, the gift of parenthood has been my greatest blessing. I believe that children make us better people. It’s God’s way of making us less selfish. Being a dad is a learning experience, we don’t always get it right the first time. As an old dad, here are some things I’d like to pass along to young dads:

You only get one shot, don’t get old and wish you had spent more time with your kids when they were young. Make time to spend qual-ity time. You don’t get a “do over” in this area.

Don’t underestimate how observant innocent eyes and ears are to your behavior.

Insure you treat your wife with love and respect. Your relationship with your wife impacts your son’s choice of a wife and your daugh-ter’s choice of a husband.

Start your children attending church at an early age; this should be-come a life long habit.

Make your evening dinner a regular family event. Invaluable bonds (Continued on page 3)

P a g e 2 B e t h a n y S p i r i t

Session Summary

T he regular monthly meeting of the Bethany Session was held on May 16, 2017, in the church of-fice. The meeting was opened in prayer at 6:33 pm and a quorum was declared present.

Chris Mize presented the devotional. She read Romans 12:3-8 encouraging us to remember that together as one we can make a “joyful noise.” Chris then led us in prayer.

The financial report from April was reviewed and Elders were given the opportunity to clarify and ask questions. The report was approved as received.

The Prayer List was reviewed and updated. Prayer cards were sent to several individuals.

Dr. Myers recapped the highlights from the Session Retreat. He also encouraged the Session to consider giving to missions supporting needs of the world.

The Docket and minutes pending any corrections that need to be made were approved.

The Session approved to add Barbara Lawson and Kelly Lewis to our list of those authorized to sign checks and review account information. They will replace Bob King and Barbara Smith.

The following correspondence was received by the Clerk:

A copy of a letter to Synovus-Bank of North Georgia regarding the changes in those authorized to sign checks for Bethany.

Keep Covington/Newton Beautiful is discontinuing and sent us a check for $12.42 which was our balance from our last recycling drop-off.

Bill Mote and Stuart Clive reported about the Presbytery meeting they attended on May 9, at Kore-an Community Presbyterian Church. It was received with appreciation.

Ongoing Pastoral Coverage:

Rev. Bill Herndon — May 21 and 28, June 4 and 11, July 2, 9, 16 and 23

Rev. Dr. Al Myers — June 18 and 25, and July 30

Ministry Teams Highlights

Cathy Cowan and Patti McFarlin have been asked to perform an audit of the church financial books for 2016.

A Gideon will present the Minute for Mission on May 21. The Session approved a love offering of $100 along with any gifts given by the congregation.

Worship committee is planning to recognize First Responders during worship on July 9. Chris Mize will coordinate with Rev. Herndon about the service.

Procurement of hickory wood for the July 4th BBQ will be coordinated by Donald Smith.

The Session’s resolution prohibiting same-sex marriages on Bethany property has been approved and added to the Operating Procedures.

The Kid’s Club will have an evening of swimming and bowling concluding with a lock-in on June 21.

The Kid’s Club / Youth Group will host a Spaghetti Dinner on July 23, to raise funds for their activi-ties.

Bethany will participate in the Baby Bottle Campaign for the Newton Pregnancy Resource Center. Bottles will be distributed on Mother’s Day and collected on Father’s Day.

(Continued on page 3)

B e t h a n y S p i r i t P a g e 3

A letter has been mailed to those members who have been missing from Bethany encouraging them to consider returning.

Old/New Business.

Brandon Douglas will write the newsletter cover letter for July.

The Ad Hoc Committee will be holding small group meetings to go over the results of their re-view of options of other denominations.

Interim Pastor Nominating Committee – Chris Mize received additional information about hiring a contract minister and guidelines for such a contract (as we are still part of the Greater Atlanta Presbytery). The committee will meet along with the Clerk of Session to prepare a draft contract for review. The plan is to have this contract finalized by the end of June so that it may com-mence in July.

Elder Nominating Committee is in the process of asking chosen candidates to consider serving on the Session.

The meeting was closed in prayer by Donald Smith at 8:22pm. The next Session meeting will be held on June 20, at 6:30 pm. Tracy Pirkle will have the devotional.

(Continued from page 2)

A huge shout out to everyone on the Worship Committee. With a full plate from Ash Wednes-day until Pentecost Sunday everyone has been so faithful with their talents. The Pentecost

Service was a great celebration of the Birthday of the Church. It was great seeing so many of the congregation wearing their RED in honor of this celebration. We also celebrated communion this Sunday.

Once again, thanks go out to all the volunteers who make our Sunday worship so special from the greeters, liturgists, ushers, acolytes and all the behind the scenes people who give their ser-vices to worship our Lord. A special thanks go out to Carolyn Peters, Carolyn Sullivan, and Law-son Hooper who see that our communion table is properly prepared on the first Sunday of the month. Thank you to everyone who works in “Wayne’s World” (sound/video room). You are a true blessing to Bethany.

We are always in need of more volunteers to help with all these needed tasks. Please call me or mention to any Session members if you are able to help in any of these volunteer areas. Re-member, “It takes a village (congregation) to keep our church going.

Worship Ministry Team

are made and shared at the family dinner table. Make it common place to pray together; remember— a family that prays together, stays together.

Perhaps the most cherished gift that a father can achieve is to witness his children grow into adulthood and realize that they have become better people than he is.

Finally, remember these scriptures as you are interacting with your children:

“The Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (John 5:17-20)

“The righteous lead blameless lives; blessed are their children after them.” (Proverbs 20:7)

“A Father’s Way” (Continued from page 1)

P a g e 4 B e t h a n y S p i r i t

June 2017 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1

2

3

4

Sunday School—9:30am Morning Worship—11:00am — Communion

5

Lee Allen

Ruth King

6

7

NO Choir Practice

8

9

Lisa Parris

10

11

Sunday School — 9:30am Morning Worship — 11:00am

12

13

Session Meeting

6:30pm

Rae Cook

14

NO Choir Practice

15

16

Mallory Adams

17

Jenni Rudasill

18

Sunday School — 9:30am Morning Worship — 11:00am - Recognition of Fathers

- Baby Bottle Campaign Ends

Violet Cowan

19

20

21

NO Choir Practice

Kid’s Club Swimming, Bowling and Lock-in

22

23

Dee Starr

24

Sack Lunch Prep &

Delivery

10:00am

McKinley Mostik

25

Men’s Breakfast — 7:30am Sunday School — 9:30am Café Connection — 10:30am Morning Worship — 11:00am - Newsletter Deadline

Joanna Reesman

26

Jamie Mote

27

28 Fun Seekers 11:00am NO Choir Practice

Grier Sims

29

30

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

his love endures forever. Psalm 107:1

B e t h a n y S p i r i t P a g e 5

Prayer Concerns

Monthly Volunteers

June 4 June 11 June 18 June 25

Children’s

Worship Kelly Lewis Tina Douglas Adrianne Mote Barbara Smith

Liturgists Chris Mize Sandi Thompson Jessica Salmon Tommy Pirkle

Greeters Buddy & Rae Cook Buddy & Rae Cook Buddy & Rae Cook Buddy & Rae Cook

Ushers

Shannon Henderson

Dennis Mills

Chris Mize

Wayne Mize

Shannon Henderson

Dennis Mills

Chris Mize

Wayne Mize

Shannon Henderson

Dennis Mills

Chris Mize

Wayne Mize

Shannon Henderson

Dennis Mills

Chris Mize

Wayne Mize

Open Bldg. Donald Smith Bill Mote Buddy & Rae Cook Men’s Breakfast

Close Bldg. Lisa Parris Carolyn Peters Tracy Pirkle Wayne & Chris Mize

Joyce & Sam Ball (Boyce) Judy Branch (Pirkle) Caitlin Burbige (O’Donnell) Cheryl Burke - Forman University (Pakistan) Helen Burke (O’Donnell) C. C. for Christ – Marcin K. & Maciek M. Jeff Clive (Clive) Bill Conner (Boyce) Clyde Cook (Buddy Cook) Hilda Digges (Boyce) Zach Foster Connor Gavell (Holleran) Terrie Greer (Douglas) Michael Hayes (Boyce) Donovan Jervise (O’Donnell) Kathleen Kohler (Boyce) Lynn & Paul Lewis

Betty M. (O’Donnell) Grady & Judy McMahan (Boyce) Cal Meeks (Mote) Irene Mize (W. Mize) Marcus Philips (O’Donnell) Brenda Reavis (C. Cowan) Barbara Reynolds (Smith) Jackie Rice (Boyce) Larry Shoemate (King/Sullivan) Bill Smith (Pirkle) Charlotte Sweeten Ava Young (Pirkle) Our Homebound Our College Students Our Military Men and Women

We need your help to keep our prayer list current. Prayer requests will remain on the list for 4 weeks. They may be added back on the list by request. You may make requests / updates by submitting a blue pew card, calling the office (770-786-1629) or by emailing (office@bpccovington.org). Thank you!

P a g e 6 B e t h a n y S p i r i t

Mother’s Day at Bethany

E very year it is our tradition to recognize two special mothers in our worship service

on Mother’s Day — the mother with the oldest child and the mother with the youngest child. This year the mother with the oldest child was Sara Mote, and the mother with the youngest child, was Bethany Belcher. All the women present at morning worship were honored with a special gift.

Vacation Bible School — Many thanks to Kelly Lewis and Shannon Henderson for their hard work and passion as directors of VBS and thanks to all the volunteers who made it a success. Everyone had a great time learning about Abraham, David, Noah, Zacchaeus, and Jesus! It was a super week!

B e t h a n y S p i r i t P a g e 7

Fourth of July Barbecue

T he Fourth of July Barbecue has been a tradition at Bethany since the early

1930's. The cooking will begin at approxi-mately 9:00pm on July 3 and continue all night until 12:00 noon on July 4.

The menu will be pork barbecue, stew, slaw, pickles, chips, bread, and plenty of cold drinks. The charge for this “all you can eat” meal is expected to be around $8.00 per person and children under six eat free. This is not a fundraising event. The intent is to collect just enough money to cover the expense of the meal. If there are funds col-lected beyond ex-penses they will be applied toward vari-ous church projects. We encourage you to invite your friends, relatives, and neigh-bors to join us!

T he Kid’s Club had planned to sell snacks at the Boy Scout Merit Badge Day, but we were unable to as the

event was canceled. Instead, we will be making up for this missed event by hosting a spaghetti dinner! On Sunday, July 23, the Kid's club will host a spaghetti dinner. Love offerings will be received to help offset the cost of monthly Kid’s Club events. This month on Wednesday, June 21, the Kids Club will start off by swimming at the Lewis' house followed by dinner, bowling, and a lock-in at church.

Kid’s Club / Youth Group

News Submitted by

Joe Lewis

Graduation Sunday

On Sunday May 28, we recog-nized our graduates at morning worship. Following worship, the graduates in attendance were joined by members of their family for a special luncheon in their honor.

We wish all or graduates the best in their future endeavors.

Don’t Forget!

Support the

Annual Baby Bottle Campaign of the Newton

Pregnancy Resource Center in Covington.

Please return your baby bottle filled with loose change on

Father’s Day!

(If you didn’t get a bottle, you may make a donation by cash

or check!)

This money will be used to help the center purchase items

to help women in crisis.

P a g e 8 B e t h a n y S p i r i t

Dear friends, April 2017 In my ongoing quest to figure out what to write, I end up not writing anything…hence, the lack of newsletters!! I have been reminded recently, by several people, that what has become normal, everyday life for me here is not normal there. So, I have decided to “start from the be-ginning” so to speak and spend the next couple of newsletters just talking about what I do here. First of all, a good bit of my time over the past several months has been spent interviewing new employees. I now have 12 departments that report directly to me and with that, about 40 admin staff and about 75 other staff in the hostels (dorms). That is a far cry from my original staff of two-part time student workers! The change in my responsibilities mirrors, in many ways, the massive changes in the university. For example, when we started the Baccalaureate program in 2005, we had only 20 Christian students on campus. Having one person working in the Christian Life Program made sense and that person reported directly to the Rector (president). We now have over 850 Christian students and our CLP staff includes a Dean of the Chapel, a Chaplain, an assistant Chaplain and a program assistant in addition to work study students and student volunteers. We have weekly chapel, special programs and several weekly Bible studies (many led by students). Due to the size of the program, it has now been moved to student affairs. Our student activities office was the first office to be formed under me and it started as co-curricular activities. There were 3 societies besides the academic ones; debating, music and drama. We had 17 academic societies. These societies had an annual budget of $50 each. That was enough to hold a few lectures and quiz competitions or maybe one major event if ex-tra money could be allotted. We now have more than 30 University societies and almost a doz-en societies for the intermediate side (That is our junior and senior in high school age group… they call that college here and it comes after class 10 which is the end of high school.) Where most of our societies at the beginning were run by a faculty member with students doing all the basic work under that person’s direction, societies now have a faculty adviser and are run al-most entirely by students with advice and supervision from our student activities office. This office has increased in size from one person to three and now has the support of an events of-fice with a staff of 4. All of these offices are supported by work study students as well. In addition to the increase in the number of societies, the budget is now closer to $80,000 in total and allows our students to have over 300 events a year including a Model United Na-tions that has, in just 5 years, become one of the leading MUNs in Pakistan. We have a Rota-ract club sponsored by a local Rotary club that participates in Polio eradication campaigns as well as a huge number of other vaccination and health related and service projects. We have an Earthwatch society focused on the environment. The Art Junction and Photography socie-ties have been added to the arts focused societies. Our International Relations and Women’s Empowerment societies work together each year to hold a TEDx conference among other pro-jects done individually and we have 5 societies that work together to hold our annual cultural festival where our students share music, dance, food and traditional clothing from their ethnic and tribal backgrounds. It is an amazing event that brought 3000 students this year… that is almost half of our student population. That brings me to one of the most important things about Forman. I find that, oftentimes, when I talk about what I do with people in the states, they don’t really get what a miracle this place is. We are a liberal arts university… so what… there are lots of those, right? Not here. We are it. We have students who run our societies and hold elections for offices within those

(Continued on page 9)

Session Summary

B e t h a n y S p i r i t P a g e 7

societies… happens everywhere right? Not in Pakistan. We have a peaceful gathering of 3000 students celebrating their diversity, not just accepting or tolerating it but making it into a party… again… that just doesn’t happen here. The day before our cultural festival, there was a huge fight on a nearby campus between students from the tribal areas, Pashtuns, and the student division of a radical Islamic group, IJT. The tensions have continued there for a month. Recently, in the northwestern part of the country a student was shot and beaten to death by a group of fellow students… he was ac-cused of blasphemy. That horrific act has sent shockwaves throughout this country, particular-ly on campuses. So, what happens at Forman? The day after the huge fight, we had a cultural festival with Pashtun students among those participating. One of our professors later told me that some members of the provincial government with whom he had met that day were nervous about our event but other members told them, “you don’t have to worry about Forman, they will have a peaceful event. They don’t have those problems there. Their students aren’t like that.” We did-n’t have any problems. In fact, the night before the event some of our Pashtun students met to assure the head of student activities that all was well and that they were thankful that those things didn’t happen here. After the terrible incident of the student being murdered on that campus in the north west, our students responded by asking to have seminars on teaching tolerance and creating safe environments. Our students are far from perfect and we have tensions here but we are dealing with them in ways that few other universities can. We have more diversity here than other universities in Pakistan and we have peace. In light of what is happening all over the world, not just in Paki-stan, I think that is pretty amazing. Your prayers and support are a large part of why this works. Thank you for that! More about what the rest of those 12 departments are doing next time!! Please continue praying for safety here. There is a rise in the radical and in the extremely conservative religious groups. We must be constantly alert and proactive to make sure that those people do not gain a foothold here on our campus. Please pray for wisdom for those of us making decisions about students. We often feel like we are walking a fine line between incredibly successful programs and absolute chaos. Please pray for our student center plans. We are so close to having funding for this and for completing plans. We are planning a building that, again, doesn’t exist anywhere else in Paki-stan and we are figuring it out as we go. Much wisdom and patience are required! Finally, I would ask for prayers for me personally. This is a huge job and a stressful place to live and there are times I am really overwhelmed. Please continue to pray for me to know what to do, what to drop, what to hand off and what to postpone. It is difficult to see so many things that need to be done and not be able to get to them. The hiring that I have been able to do over the past several months is really going to pay off but in the short run, these new folks need training. Some days, I just need a whole lot of grace. I know that I am being prayed over because there are times when that grace comes as a sense of just “knowing” that I am not alone. Thank you! Love and prayers, Cheryl

Session Summary (Continued from page 8)

For we live by faith, not by sight. 2 Cor. 5:7

Primary Business Address Address Line 2 Address Line 3 Address Line 4

P a g e 8 B e t h a n y S p i r i t

The Story Within the Stained Glass Windows (Part three of ten) Submitted by Tommy McFarlin

Starting at the front right side of the sanctuary and moving around clockwise, you will see scripture on each window. This is part three of the story told …. Matthew 5:1-11 One day as the crowds were gathering, he went up the hillside with his disciples and sat down and taught them there. “Humble men are very fortunate!” he told them, “for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them. Those who mourn are fortunate! For they shall be comfort-ed. The meek and lowly are fortunate! For the whole wide world be-longs to them. “Happy are those who long to be just and good, for they shall be completely satisfied. Happy are the kind and merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. Happy are those whose hearts are pure, for they shall see God. Happy are those who strive for peace they shall be called the sons of God. Happy are those who are per-secuted because they are good, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. When you are reviled and persecuted and lied about be-cause you are my followers…..Wonderful!”

Bethany Presbyterian Church 1002 Bethany Road

Covington, GA 30016 Phone: 770-786-1629

Fax: 770-786-9676 E-mail: office@bpccovington.org