Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 6, 1993 TAG: 9306040136
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Dayspring is one of Blacksburg's newer churches. It dates from 1974 when, according to Dr. Houston Couch, his family and a few others began gathering in homes.
Inspired by a number of books on spiritual healing, they were trying to replicate the way early Christians worshiped and cared for each other using the Bible as their sole guide.
The church today - a "community" is the word more often used - has about 180 people committed to regularly attending one of seven house groups that meet on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday nights. They, said Couch, a plant pathologist, are the heart of the congregation.
These gatherings are purposely kept to a dozen or so people who share their daily joys and sorrows, pray, sing and seek God's will. On Sundays from 10 a.m. to noon they come together in an 11-year-old center at Clay and Prospect streets.
It was that Sunday gathering to which I went last week where about 125 men, women and children heard one of the volunteer elders, Dr. Don McKeon, a Virginia Tech faculty member, present "a teaching."
It related to Pentecost which annually is celebrated 50 days after Easter.
On this day, the Bible's New Testament book of Acts recounts, the Holy Spirit was sent from God through Jesus Christ to those left behind after Jesus' ascension. McKeon gave 25 minutes at the end of the two-hour service to discussing four descriptions of it.
In the 14th and 16th chapters of the Gospel of John, McKeon noted, Jesus in his farewell conversation with his followers speaks of a spirit of truth, of adoption, of life and of unity. This spirit is to come to those who follow him and will give comfort, power and an everlasting sense of unity in love.
It also will convince the reflective that the best of strivings cannot match the joy and power evident when a person admits to human failures and turns his life over to God.
The intervening 15th chapter relates to the relationship of Christ and his followers being like a vine with fruitful branches. Fruitfulness is made possible, said McKeon, because Christ promised to be a guide for right conduct, a loving father in a family of followers, a glorified bearer of light and a companion dwelling with a believer at all times.
Christians have all these advantages for the asking, and that is easier, the speaker asserted, when individuals choose to be part of a community where Jesus is honored.
Dayspring's name comes from an old Scriptural word for "Messiah," associated with the rising of the sun. The group's style of worship - charismatic with Scripture set to music, clapping, upraised hands and praying and singing "in the Spirit" - bears little resemblance to that of mainstream churches.
That very difference is refreshing to many adults who once, like Couch, were members of staid conservative or liberal congregations.
It's appealing, too, he noted, for young people whose family religion for one reason or another reached them only superficially.
Small groups for sharing life under God's grace are hardly unusual in many churches. Adult Sunday school classes started this way 200 years ago, and today countless religious groups both in and out of familiar denominations rely on small regular gatherings to give depth to spiritual life.
The Blacksburg group has survived many changes, its two elders indicated. It is constantly evolving.
Couch tells about its Christian school serving more than 100 pupils from kindergarten through high school. All its graduates, he said, have gone to college and the academic records of several are enviable. It offers structure and parental involvement undergirded by Bible moral values, he indicated.
And in the 18 years that the Dayspring group has existed, many young adults have moved away but carried their convictions with them. He cited a black leader of a right-wing education reform group in New York as an alumnus.
Dayspring, said Couch and McKeon, is not affiliated with a denomination. It is growing regularly by 10 to 15 percent annually.
Judging from last week's holiday Sunday, when the worship center was two-thirds full, a majority of the committed are young families and singles.
Children of all ages abound. They remain for more than an hour with their families. The younger ones go to classes on the building's lower level before the adults' message.
Dayspring, like countless other charismatic Christian groups blossoming over the past 25 years, has its own liturgy, although that term is not used.
There are no hymnals on the folding chairs with their cheerful yellow seats; words for the dozen spiritual songs sung at intervals for the first 90 minutes were projected on the wall. Many are sung from memory, and the uninitiated quickly pick up the tune and choruses; soon I was clapping cheerfully along with the rest.
Time is given for silent prayer between the songs, and, from their seats, members of the congregation read Bible passages at intervals. Guitars - and a violin at one point - accompanied the singing.
Last Sunday before the children left, an infant was dedicated to God. Gregory Robertson's father, Paul, along with Gregory's mother, Lisa, and his grandparents, brought the baby before the congregation and spoke of his appreciation of the pain of birth bringing forth joy.
Couch and McKeon - the third elder, Joe Jones, was absent last week - prayed over the child and the people applauded.
The Dayspring building, into which a woman in a wheelchair was easily brought, is notable for its flexibility. After last week's service, the worship area - brightened by large clear windows and fan-cooled - was transformed in eight minutes to a dining room for a light Pentecost meal. Everyone pitched in, a symbol of community in action.
Spacious grounds with play equipment for the school offer ample parking. The building first was used in 1982.
"If we ever decide to dissolve our community, we can always sell it quickly for housing or business space," Couch said. "We don't need a steeple and the look of a church."
Sunday Sojourner appears monthly in the New River Current. Its purpose is not to promote a particular point of view but to inform readers of a variety of worship styles.
by CNB