Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 4, 1993 TAG: 9307020069
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS
DATELINE: SHAWSVILLE LENGTH: Long
Last Sunday morning, a crystal clear June day with a fresh breeze blowing, it was easy to believe that assurance from the sermon of the Rev. John Wesley Smith Smith at Shawsville Congregational Holiness Church.
It had been a busy week rich in such miracles for the 48-year-old pastor. He had worked hard in his role as youth director of the Virginia District. The church he serves is on the eight-acre tract the district uses for its annual summer camps to offer spiritual support to both young people and adults.
"I was baby-sitting 57 active kids," said the pastor with a chuckle," and to top that, I married off my daughter yesterday. That's a miracle and a blessing."
The pastor's daughter, Tammy, married Kevin Palmer of Riner. She is the youngest of his four children. She and her brothers, Lee, Junior and Teddy all have remained active in the past 15 years. Grandchildren also occupy the nursery these days.
That's a lot to be thankful for, Smith said, and some of his congregation of about 50 assented with words and a hallelujah or two.
People who aren't thankful enough to praise God may have grown spoiled, said the pastor. Things have been too good for them. "If you'd just got over a bad sickness, you'd sure be thankful, wouldn't you? Or if you had just buried a loved one, you'd know the need of the Lord."
When Smith asked his congregation to raise their hands if they thought they had problems too big to answer, no one did so. It was plainly a good day.
God, however, expects praise and thanks from his children for such good days, Smith exhorted. People who fail to give their maker his due will fall away as did Eli, an Old Testament priest who not only failed to raise up godly sons but grew negligent in his own duties of keeping the Shiloh shrine in worthy condition.
Because of this, Smith said, God raised up the child Samuel to become a great leader of the ancient Jewish people. Samuel in turn had been blessed from birth because of the faith of his mother, Hannah.
Reading from the traditional King James Bible, which the pastor asked those in the pews to follow, he pointed out that childless Hannah was blessed with a son.
This, said Smith, was because she trusted in God even though she had to contend with the humiliation of being taunted by her husband's other wife who produced the desired babies.
Smith emphasized that after the birth of Samuel, Hannah had several other children. The pastor said he believed that God rewarded Hannah's gift of her first son to the temple by giving her others. Had she not kept her promise, made out of desperation for her barrenness, God might have treated her quite differently, he suggested.
The pastor's 20-minute message was laced with humorous references about giving a dollar to a strange beggar, of his own former days as a milk salesman, of losing a pen and sometimes the not-so-funny such as trying to find a parishioner to tell him sad family news.
In all such circumstances, "God abides," said Smith. For those who try to believe this, the worst of circumstances becomes a blessing.
The Shawsville Congregational Holiness group worships in a spacious log building just south of town on the Alleghany Spring Road. Though it looks newer, it was occupied four years ago and replaced a tiny block structure on the same site.
Fully accessible to those in wheelchairs, it is on a hilly lot with education and fellowship space on the lower level and a worship center in which there was plenty of space last Sunday.
Behind the church building, the green valley opens up to well-maintained recreation area for the summer camps. A dormitory and dining hall are part of this property.
Smith noted that his congregation is one of six of the denomination in Virginia. Another, which the district superintendent serves, is in Roanoke's Old Southwest neighborhood. The church is strongest in the Carolinas and Georgia with its national headquarters in Griffin, Ga., south of Atlanta.
In church government it differs from the more familiar Pentecostal Holiness Church of Western Virginia in having less control from an hierarchy, Smith said. Members and their pastor make more decisions about choosing leadership, building and other matters.
But like other Holiness groups, it is marked by expressiveness in worship, clapping during gospel songs and applause for such actions as small children singing. During prayer early in the 50-minute service, many worshipers communicated with God in words others could not understand.
Music last Sunday in Shawsville included a solo by Linda Hedgepeth; like the sermon, it emphasized the need to give praise to God. Congregational and choir singing was all done at once.
Soon after the service began at 11 a.m., nine men and women in street clothes came from the pews to a bench behind the central pulpit and led in three hymns.
Hymnals issued 42 years ago by a Cleveland, Tenn., publisher were used. The shaped-note style of music produced a sound familiar to those who know the twangy tones of the Appalachians.
"Keep on the Firing Line" and " Living By Faith" reflected the theology of holiness belief: God's grace produces the desire to be good people but human weakness makes this a constant struggle.
Education for all ages starts at Shawsville Congregational Holiness at 10 a.m. More than 60 adults and children contributed $35.74 for its offering last week, it was announced at 10:50.
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