Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 1, 1994 TAG: 9404280023
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: MCCOY LENGTH: Long
A sojourner usually doesn't arrive at such a providential time. The congregation, following its noon business meeting after worship - at which lay leader Gary McCoy explained the plans for the third time - applauded when the votes were counted.
To be as fair as possible to a few active members who could not be present last Sunday, the congregation decided to have ballots available today. There seems little doubt, however, that around Easter 1995 a new Centennial church will crown the hill from which a few Blacksburg landmarks can be seen.
In a village the size of McCoy, which only the day before had dedicated a monument to its deceased coal miners, a $400,000 church building project is a major community event.
The Rev. Gordon M. Lee, pastor for five years, sees the new building as an asset to the community in the western end of Montgomery County, close to the New River and its picturesque bluffs. It will have a greatly enlarged worship area on the south end of the present structure and that will be air-conditioned in summer. On the other end, where the parking lot is now, a spacious fellowship hall will go up.
As in many other new churches, Centennial will have a central narthex, a gathering place to connect the worship and fellowship areas. Glassed at each end, it will take advantage of the sweeping view across the cemetery.
To save money and because the house of worship already has comfortable and attractive green-toned pews, a grand piano and some other modern touches, these will go into the new area, Lee said. A builder has not been chosen. The Architects Alliance Inc. of Blacksburg has designed the building.
One thing that makes members especially pleased is that when the new church is done, it still will look something like the present one, a landmark to the community. The tower and its hand-rung bell, which looks more like it should be on a seacoast light-keeper's cottage than on a mountain church, will remain, Lee said.
Basically, the present church will form the center of the new building with wings on each end. Among the needed improvements will be full access for those in wheelchairs and a modern nursery. Despite a split about 30 years ago over liberalizing some practices and developing a stronger national structure, Centennial has been growing steadily in the past few years, Lee said. Community Christian, a more conservative group which pulled out of the Disciples, has its own church on Centennial Drive nearer the center of McCoy. Folks come from Blacksburg and Christiansburg to the old congregation. Lee, 53, estimated that probably half the congregation of about 100 drive out from the more populated areas.
Younger families like the rural atmosphere and the generally traditional tone that prevails at Centennial, the pastor speculates. Many members are kin to each other.
Lee himself was reared in Blackstone and served several churches in other parts of Virginia before coming with his wife, Connie, to McCoy. Even in 1989, he noted, the building "had been expanded as much as it could be." Its small, detached fellowship hall will be used for services while the new construction is in progress.
Worship at Centennial is informal in that members make announcements at will from the pews and choir, and the pastor keeps folks informed with some details about the sick and other village events. Music from a 1986 hymnal published by Word for evangelical Protestant congregations was led by a choir of 15 unrobed men and women whom Mary Pennington directed.
Well trained and enthusiastic, the choir performed as an offertory anthem, "Grace Greater Than Our Sin" from the hymnal. It's hard not to sing with joy with Jeannie Brewer smiling as she plays the piano. Brewer told me she's been a member of Centennial only three years but feels "like I've been here all my life."
Around 75 people of all ages occupied the little church with its frosted windows and ceiling fans. Small ones, including two Russian-born youngsters adopted internationally last year, kept up a soft patter throughout Lee's sermon.
He talked for 20 minutes of "Watching, Walking and Worshiping," a reflection on the New Testament story of Peter's and John's healing of a disabled man. Many Christians just watch, Lee said, noting that that's a useful preliminary to many actions. But the time comes, as it did with Jesus' followers, when results are needed and new deeds undertaken, as they will be in the construction of the new Centennial church.
People are led to worship when they realize nothing can be accomplished without God's help, the pastor concluded.
As in all churches identified variously with Disciples and Christian/Churches of Christ, Communion each Sunday is part of the ritual.
Centennial has it midway through the service, with laity offering the prayers of consecration and passing bread pellets and cups of grape juice to those in the pews.
Serving at the Communion table last Sunday at Centennial were Jane Brotherton and Homer Albert, Darrell Roberts, Jane McCoy, John Scott and Ray Decker.
The congregation sang one verse of the African spiritual, "Let Us Break Bread Together," as the ritual began. The process, as Disciples do it, takes little more than five minutes and is considered a memorial requested by Christ at a gathering of his people.
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