Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 5, 1990 TAG: 9005050051
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Rev. George C. Goodman of Charlotte, N.C., will be nominated as associate presbyter for support and nurture of church professionals. He is pastor of C.N. Jenkins Memorial Church.
Presbytery of the Peaks came into being last July as part of a national merger of Northern and Southern Presbyterians and churches serving both blacks and whites.
Goodman, who is black, will join the Rev. Dr. George Magnuson, general presbyter, and Edith Patton, associate presbyter for education and mission, who represent the former predominantly white churches. The presbytery office is in Lynchburg.
The Peaks presbytery comprises congregations in the Roanoke and New River valleys as well as east to Charlotte County.
Also to be nominated is the Rev. George M. Wilson of Danville for the job of stated clerk. Wilson administered the work of the former black Presbytery of Southern Virginia before the merger. Magnuson said the job has been redefined.
Magnuson added that "significant progress" is being made in organizing a new Presbyterian congregation to serve the growing southern Botetourt area. About 40 people have been meeting each Sunday since last October at Bonsack United Methodist Church.
The Rev. Carl Schiffeler has been interim organizing pastor. Action of the presbytery today in Danville will include consideration of a call to the Rev. G. Wilson Gunn Jr. of Chapel Hill, N.C.
Gunn, a native of North Carolina and an honor graduate of Davidson College and Duke Divinity School, is experienced as a student pastor and organizer of new churches, Magnuson said.
Gunn is married and has three children. Most recently he has been studying for a doctorate from the University of North Carolina.
If approved at today's meeting, Gunn will come to Botetourt by mid-July to further develop the new church. It will be on Alternate U.S. 220/Virginia 604 on land the presbytery bought nearly a decade ago.
Churches currently are beginning a drive to raise $300,000 in start-up funds.
Peace Presbyterian is the name given to the proposed Botetourt church.
by CNB