cover. We have 30 years to cover. And so let me open with prayer and then we'll begin. Father, we praise you and we thank you for this day. And we thank you, Lord, for what you've done through this small segment of the body of Christ for 30 years. And Lord, we praise you and we honor you for what you've done in spite of us, for how you've used us, for the generosity of your people and for the willingness of your people to use their spiritual gifts. And so now we ask that you would be with us for this very brief time this morning and that you would send your Holy Spirit to rejoice with us over what you've done, over the lives that have been changed in the past and for the work you're going to do in the future. And we pray and ask these things in Christ name. Amen. All right, come on in, grab a seat. So let me introduce some people. Where do I begin? Let me begin at the top. Bob and Fran Fittler were the first, Bob was the first pastor here along with his wife, Fran. They started in 1981 and they're currently living west of Atlanta. I'm not quite sure where, but I think we'll probably find out. I was not here when Bob began this work, but we're going to hear a bit about that. And Bob, would you come up, and I'll adjust the mic accordingly? Bob Fittler, thank you. That is me. This is an emotional moment for me to come back here after 30 years. I see so many faces that have been here before. How many of you were here when we formed a church? Hold up your hand. A few of you were. That's right. Great.
Well, those of you that were here and some of the rest of you, I guess over the years after that, remember the old church down there and the old Methodist, former Methodist church down there in Gainesville. But I'll tell you a little about that in a minute. One thing I want to bring out this morning, and it's such a wonderful privilege. I just thank you so much that you invited us back here for this. There you are. I want to read a passage from Scripture. And it's best as how I felt all along in a particularly in the foundation of this church. And some of you that were here when I was here, remember that Ephesians was what was about my favorite book, and it's still a yes. And let me see if I can read this to you. Now to him who is able to do a measurably more than all we can imagine, according to his power than that is at work within us. To him be glory in the church. And in the church Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever I'm in. I like that passage especially in connection with this because right at the beginning and all the preparation for this, the theme that ran through it all was the idea that this was had to be God's work. Only he could accomplish what we said out to do. And in a sense, we could have no idea what this would be. We first came here. I remember Lloyd Strickland came up to me and he said, when we came out to Chestnut Mountain, and he he spoke to me and said, Bob, he says, one of our great desires has been eventually will start a church in Gangeville. And that went on for several years and several things began to happen. And shortly after I went there, a group of young people came out. Young adults came out from some of the churches in Gangeville. They had been in the young single, young life movement. And they came out in business. They just wanted to see what this new pastor was all about and what was happening. So they came out in business and pointed, they have a million questions. Over the next weeks, and maybe a month or two, they would constantly ask me questions after the service of whatever the time was. And as a result, I found myself having to spend more and more time after the service answering their questions. Most of these were not formal Presbyterians, but they had heard about the reform faith through the leader that had come to Gangeville to take the work of young life there. Well, I decided the only way to solve this whole thing was to tell them, look, I can't stand up here and talk to you all for an hour and a half after the service. But what we'd like to do is, why don't you just come out the house after the evening service tonight? And we'll talk about these names, answer your questions. I thought this would be one of two times at the most. And that was a start of it. And I mean, it started with a bang. And it was only about eight or nine that came, but gradually it grew. The first thing they asked me, you know what the first question they asked me? Please explain predestination. Nothing like a simple topic. But anyway, they more and more came out. And that little group started growing. And they would get their head of the time. Well, I was finishing up the service at the church. And they would gather there. And then they had new weather. I heard the key at the house. And they'd come in and get the key and go in and fix cookies or snacks and all that we needed. So when we were a friend and I arrived, it was all ready. And they had the living room cleaned out and well, set up in there so that they set us up two chairs that they had in the room. And they were set all around. Well, over the next several years, that group grew. I mean, it filled, before it was through, it was filling up that living room. And they would come every night. You remember this, Lisa. And it was fabulous. They brought their arms out. Various ones came and we just talked at first, and then we would do Bible studies and so forth. And this went on and on. But they began to go back to Gainesville. As I understood it, they told me this. And they would talk about what an experience it was out there at Chestnut Mountain. And then we started getting some adult families out there to the church. And they were visiting us. And gradually, the little congregation, which was about 87, when I went there, kept growing and growing. And that little church would only hold about 160 or so people wouldn't it? And pretty soon, they filled up that little church. That was included in the choir, that 160. And they packed that little sanctuary. And then some of us, and they all just talked together. And we said, this appears to be the time. It's the time to start that church. We began praying hard. The groups prayed sometimes. On Wednesday night, half the time that we had the service was devoted to nothing but prayer about this. And the people that were there, we started looking for a place we could meet. And let me take, read your little something that appeared in an old newspaper that used to come out, the Presbyterian Journal. And this is the one that happened. When we decided to organize this church, the first night we came here to start it. The first night we were going to have our opening service. And that, to me, was amazing. Before that, we had heard about this church that was vacant. We had looked around town, we thought maybe a storefront or something like that. That's the way churches start. Well, somebody said, well, the first method is churches available. And so we said, okay, let's go look at it. We did. And sure enough, it was available. And we started planning for it. Believe me, they were planning big. On the night finally, we organized that they had worked so hard, the people from out there, just not mad. And the ones that were in town here, they had come in and worked in the evening or weekend, just scrubbing, cleaning, painting, fixing the things that needed to be in that church. Hard work and prayer. And then we decided to have our opening service. We decided that we knew that a lot of these young Sangles and the ones that come out didn't know us well. So we order publicizes. And some of the elders, the elder was, one of the elders was appointed our publicity. And they started publicizing, preparing the preparation on that. And they started telling people around town that we were going to have this service. Well, there was a radio station that just nothing out in the sponsor radio program, Ben Hayden of Chetanuga was well known to him. He had this program called Change Lives. And he would come out. We invited him to come down for that service. And we decided the best time to have that service would be on a Thursday night. Because it wouldn't conflict with anybody of this service. So we all got, we got ready and planned it. And we decided to go big. We had no idea how big. Joel Bels wrote in this article. He says in the years ahead, executives of the church extension agencies might well be the path to this little North Georgia country seat to learn all about how to start a new church. Only time will tell whether the approach used here to launch a new congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America is totally effective. But certainly the early signs were good. Attendance at the church's initial service was estimated at between 600 and 700 people that night, that Thursday night. Before him, we thought, look, we got to pray, this is God. If it's going to work, he's got to do the work. Otherwise, it'll fail. Well, let's plan big. And we got to talk. And we're supposed to, this kind of, this thing we're going to see at 600. Let's, why don't we set up just in case God sends more people? And he did. That night with that 600, 673 people, I think it was, or 83 people who started coming in, we had made preparations. We set up TV screens in the Fellowship Hall and set up chairs. We had to spill the congregate, the God that over in the Fellowship Hall and to see the service on television screens. Ben spoke that night. It was fabulous. The publicity we got was tremendous as a result of this. The little church just blew everybody's eye a mind away. Now, it didn't stay that way for every service. Don't get me wrong. A lot of people came to see, I won't think to see what we did to the old Methodist church.
But that, the next, the very next Sunday, when we held our first regular service, there was 150 people present for that service. Now, I don't know what other people in the Presbyterian Church in America, have had a good experience. But none of us had had that kind of experience or heard of it of a church exploding like that in the beginning and growing. And I'm pleased to see to see all of you here, which is testimony to how much that church has grown and how it has remained and how it is such a witness in this community. I'm not going to talk much longer, but I won't say one more thing just to test the money to you. I had a, we were doing videotapes, videotapes of R.C. Sproul in Out of Chestnut Mountain. And there was a man that came out and visited these sessions that we were doing. And I talked to him later and he was asking you at the, he was, I think it was the night that at the reception after the organization, I mean, that first night we gathered. And he came up to me and introduced himself and said that he was a holiness pastor. I said, you're a holiness pastor, yes. He says, I came when you all started having those studies because I wanted to see if Presbyterians knew anything about holiness. Well, I think the, in the, a few days before we started had had our, that service on Thursday night. He wrote an article for the newspaper commending this church for starting this new congregation and commending it to the people of Gangel for their interest and support. It was tremendous. One of the, the only things that really marty for me was my dear wife after all the work we, we worked to midnight before the, at service. The next day she came down sick and was put in the house that led that she couldn't attend that service. But it was great. The whole service was tremendous with that one exception. And I want to tell you, believe me, God worked bigger than anything we could imagine. He is glorious. I believe I taught it. I want to commend all those singles that came out. The others that came out in the city and the people that just out in the mountain that started that, they started out by giving us $25,000 to get the church started. It was just a tremendous experience. And I want to tell you, that's what I remember most about the starting of Westminster. I want to read you one passage that to me, the way I feel about you and I have been about this whole congregation for all these years. I want to try to read it here. It's from Ephesians again, and it says, one moment here, I'll get it. For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches that he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have the power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love in which the past is knowledge that you may be filled with all the measure of the fullness of God. That's what I've prayed for you, and I will continue to do it. God bless you. Thank you, Bob. We appreciate your efforts and your vision and your steadfastness all these years. And for those of you who haven't met Bob yet and is wife friend, I hope you'll get a chance to after the service today. Wonderful. Great, Bob said he's going to leave us a packet of material including what he was reading from today so that we can put it in the archives. We appreciate that, Bob. Thank you. When Martian arrived here in late 85, 86, Lee loved it was the pastor. His wife is Julie, and I believe Lee and Julie were here until 1996, if that's correct. Where are you, Lee? Raise your hand here. There he is. Lee had as much gray hair back then as he does now, and he's a great friend and Lee love it. Give me a hand. It's interesting to see Steve and we were coming back from a funeral of a dear friend this past week in Augusta and as we were listening on the radio coming back all of a sudden, we heard this voice. That's Steve I think, and it was. Well, we were here from the summer of 85 to 95 and when I was contacted about coming and asked to reflect a little bit and I thought, what do you say about it in 10 years, you know as far as how do you do that in five minutes? Of course, there is no way to do that, but one thing the Lord brought a verse to me, very short verse, but it really captures our thoughts. My thoughts of our time here at Westminster, of course, not in this building. It was at the Old Building down the road that we circled around as we came in this morning just because it's been a while since we looked at it, but in Philippians 1, 3, Paul says, I thank my God in every remembrance of you. And that really marks where we are feelings about Westminster, about Gainesville is great thanks for the many things that God did in our own lives while we were here for in the lives of people since we've been here. Bob Julie was just reminding me that we have a couple in our church in Winder that came as single couples, single individual, I think at the time to the Bible study way back then. So it just spreads all out. But anyway, I thought and just kind of listed some things out that I thought we could go that I could just hit without, there's no way I'm going to get everybody, I'm going to leave out names, I ain't going to begin to, but I will mention a few names. But I want to thank God for first of all his sovereignty and directing Julie and me here during that time in 1985, and his clear sovereignty and leading us away from here in 1995. We also thank him for the staff of people. I began to think back when it was just Shirley and myself, Shirley Meffert, and we were the only ones in terms of staff, and then God brought Jack and Martha here and then Todd who's now with the Lord. But Lucian Adams, Joel Skoggins was our first youth guide, Dane and Lloyd Aberg, after that Bob Spooner, our first real headmaster of the school, and what a joy to know him and still see him. They were all and are all faithful staff co-workers, but also good friends. And I have to say that is something that is very special. I remember Ben Hayden once told me, when I became the pastor here, he said to look for, when I was talking to him about an assistant and things he says, you look for someone who's faithful. He says, seminaries don't teach guys how to be faithful. He says, you can teach a faithful guy anything. And God sent us Jack Bell, and of course he was a friend before then, but great, he and Martha great friends. I give thanks for the new lives, the people that became believers in the ministry here. There are many that could be said, but ones in particular that were in the very early stages of a brand-new fledgling evangelism explosion ministry were Marcelo and Jenny Arteaga. There were more than others, but as great satel Marcelo said, where's all the hair come from? Because he didn't have all that the last time I saw him, but great seeing them. We give thanks for the friends that we made here, that we still consider friends, their children, the friends of our, many of our kids, when they think of home, they think of Gainesville. They think of this place. We do too. If someone says something about where's your home? My first thought is Gainesville. I didn't grow up here, but this was a place that was near and dear to our hearts, the friends that we made, our kids made was special. I think about, you know, they said tell some funny stories. I'll tell a couple of funny stories. One, I was just thinking about, I saw Teresa Hughes this morning, but I remember the time, and this kind of goes with my next point, is I give thanks for the time of the many hours of work that we as a church family spent together, renovating and re-renavating and renovating and re-renavating and gutting and knocking down walls. And forever in the day, the deacons and the church, all of us were gathering together. And the, as we got the new wing, or the old wing kind of renovated and started going into each floor. I remember one Sunday morning, Julie was standing out in the little quadrangle parking lot, and she saw Brad Hughes step out of the, remember those of you that were there, hey, Debbie, you, that you could actually step outside the windows, and there was a little ledge. Well, Brad had already gotten out, and it was to the point where Julie didn't want to yell at him because Fred, he'd let go. And he went around and got back into the other side, and then Julie was going up to, to let him know that that was not the appropriate thing to do. And then she saw Teresa, and Teresa said, I'll handle it. And so when she came up to Brad, and Brad just was shocked that Teresa knew anything about it, he said, how did you know? She said, her response was, God has ways of letting parents know. I don't know if that kept Brad out of trouble later on, or not Teresa, but
I give thanks for the maturity of the people who grew in their faith while we were here. And for those of you who were patient, with me, and helped me grow as a young minister. One individual that's not here, I don't see him anyway, Lord Strickland. Lord scared me to death initially, and Doer will know that Lord would always take me out for what I began to call a three by five luncheon. And what that meant was, we went to the cafeteria, he called me and said, Lou, let's go to eat. And it's okay, Lord. And so we'd meet at the cafeteria at the mall, and we'd have a nice lunch together, and then also he'd reach in his pocket, and he'd pull out a three by five card. And then he would proceed to go through things that he thought we ought to think about doing. And sometimes, given me constructive criticism, and what I learned very quickly was that Lloyd was for me. At no point was he critical. And every way he wanted to see the church and me succeed. Many of you that were there back in those days, and Lloyd, if he was here, he would not, he would not even say, but let me give you, have no idea what he did behind the scenes, to keep the church going, to keep the school going. And the neat thing about that is Lloyd never implied. If you don't do it my way, I'll take my money and leave. He was committed to Jesus Christ. And he was committed to seeing the things of God go forward.
God done Steve. We saw that God knew much as the church grew, the school grew. Many challenges, many growing pains, but God saw us through all of that, and we have great, fine memories of that. I give thanks to God when God made it clear that our time here was over, I'm thankful for the fact that we obeyed Him, even though we didn't want to go. And I think that says a lot, that when it was time to leave, and we needed to go, that we didn't want to, because we loved this place. And so we have fond memories. There's so much more I could say, but I've already taken too long. But we're encouraged here to see what God is doing, and we're looking forward to seeing and hearing more in the future. Thank you. Thank you, Lee. Appreciate that. Lee, did we ever get that leak fixed on the outside wall? Did that, there was another story he was going to tell, yeah, in the water. During the wedding. Yeah, that's hip now. I go to hotels and stuff, and I see water flowing down the wall, and I think of church. Okay, Jack and Martha Beller here, most of you know them. Jack was Lee's associate for many years, and then became the interim for a while after Lee left. Jack now works with M.T.W. and Jack, please come up and share with us. Jack back. What a very special day to be together here with you. It's just fun to look out and see lots of faces. I like Lee was a student of Lloyd's, but I think I learned better than he did. It's just amazing to think back over our time. We came in 87, and our daughter Rebecca was almost two years old. She's now 26. Our son Scott was born a year after we arrived, and we were here through 2000. So we were here a long time, and now on staff with mission to the world. And I remember so many things I could mention. I could do a few stories I wanted to tell you, but let me set the stage by putting in the context of what I'm doing now, which is working with the mission to the world. Seth Wallace, an elder here, and I worked together in what we call church resourcing. It's kind of church relations for M.T.W. And we have the privilege of visiting churches. Part of what we do is lead vision trips, and that's what I want to talk about just for a second. I led a group of nine people, pastors, and church missions leaders to Japan last month. And it's an amazing place. It's basically an unchurched nation that's less than 1% Christian. And everywhere we went, we were just kind of on the lookout for believers, and there's just few and far between. But the churches there, small and struggling, are growing, and they're very committed people and joyous people in their faith. It's fun to see. In fact, it reminded me a lot of my time here at Westminster, just to see a new church beginning, growing, maturing, going through some growing pains, as Lee mentioned, some of the challenges of that too. But to see in the context of Japan that really it's God who sustains the church, in the face of all kinds of cultural opposition there, it's just very unJapanese to be a believer. And we have cultural opposition here. It looks very different. But we have the same spiritual opposition that the church around the globe faces. I'm privileged to see that all over and know that the church is really God's faithful hand at work. And that's the story here too. God's been faithful over the years here at Westminster. So thankful, Martha and I, for our time here. Just a reminder of the cast of characters that God brought through. I won't even begin to talk about the church members, the church family. But let me highlight a few more staff people that were here when I was here. Lee mentioned a few of them. Shirley Meffert, I got to bring out Shirley just a little bit more here. You know, Shirley was a faithful, faithful person on staff behind the scenes in so many ways. Shirley is a character. I don't know if you know her well. But I was just getting to know Shirley. One day in the old building, the church office was in the two-story form of parsing-age of the Methodist church. And Shirley grew up in the Midwest. She was very familiar with tornadoes. And she knew also the history of the tornado here, downtown, 1936, or whenever it was. And she kept talking that day about the weather forecast. I'm like, Shirley, you're really concerned about this, aren't you? Yes, I am. Well, all of a sudden, a siren went off. And the next thing I heard was Shirley's high heels shoes flying down the wooden staircase, going down to the basement of that two-story building. I didn't know she could move so fast. Well, she took tornado warnings very seriously. Thankfully, there wasn't on that day. But Shirley, a very faithful servant. We also had in the church office, that Jean Nichols. Jean, I think I saw you here today. Are you here? Oh, there she is. Jean, so good to see you. I thought I saw you. And we also had Becky Rundles. Becky, are you here today? No, but her family is. Seth and Leslie Wallace and their kids are here. And as I said, Seth and I worked together. And who knew that Becky's son-in-law was going to be an elder at Westminster? I tell you, I always told Becky she was a closet presbyterian. She's still a Baptist as far as I know. But she's a presbyterian wannabe. That's right. And Phoebe, face here today, what a delight to work with Pho over the years, what a faithful servant. It's so good to have her here. You know, we had some amazing youth ministry workers here, too. Joel Skoggins, Lee mentioned. Dane and Lloyd Aburk left a big impact on many. Brian and Christophe are certainly the same. Dan and Amy Marcon, while I was still here. And then music ministry, Jim Parks, kind of got things started to understand. Lisa Nesbitt was a beginning person and leading a phlegmed choir. David Jones, now and later in the church family here, Lucy Ann is here today. Lucy Ann Adams, Steve Hammaker was here as well during my time. It's just fun to think back over the cast of a people that God put together here over a period of years. But certainly that doesn't even highlight the church family. What an amazingly talented, gifted, godly group of folks and a joy to know you and serve alongside you. I'm thrilled to be back today. Thanks so much. John Grawley was our next pastor and served here until 2001. The thing I remember about John and those of you who were there then will remember this as well. He was the only pastor that I'm aware of that used to dress up in the pulpit as an Old Testament prophet or saint or Amy would show up once or twice a year as Joe or Isaiah or Jeremiah or something. First time it sort of caught us all off guard and someone was dialing 911 and we were scared for what might be happening. But it was a real joy. He enjoyed it, he was great at it and the kids loved it and the adults loved it as well. And I think we have a video from Pastor Grawley. Happy anniversary Westminster Gainesville. You know when you get a little bit older, your long-term memory works very well. Your short-term memory may not work as well. And I tend to keep remembering all of these songs. And the song that comes to mind that I think of when I think about Westminster is a song that Nat King Cole used to sing. Unforgettable. That's what you are. That's not quite his style but anyway. And truly our time at Westminster is unforgettable. One of the most unforgettable days was the first day we were there and it brings another song to mind and that is slip sliding away which was not my favorite song but that day was I think one of the worst ice storms that ever hit North Georgia. And all the churches in town were closed except Westminster. And we were there to candidate and for you to vote on us and it was quite a time and I think some of you even walked the church. That shows the true grit of Westminster Gainesville. But there are just a lot of memories. I think back of the time that we had the auction to raise money for missions and people donated things and Ralph Taylor was resplendent in his bib-overalls and his teeth, his front teeth sort of jutting out. I don't think they were his real teeth. But anyway all of those things, Christmas concerts I think of the buzz of chainsaws and Jimmy Isher's backyard as we were cutting up trees after the tornado, Sunday school picnics, all kinds of memories come to mind. The memory that comes to mind most vividly is the time when we had three dear people in our church that were terminally ill, three ladies and they were all pretty young. In fact one was only three years old. And we set at the end of the service that morning if anyone would like to stay after the service we're going to have a special time of prayer for these people and virtually everybody stayed and we prayed for I think it must have been an hour that we prayed and there were lots of tears. And to me that shows the true heart of the congregation at Westminster Gainesville. And so we thank you very much for having us for the years that we were there. We just appreciate you're calling us. We appreciate the time that we had there. And just this morning I was reading Psalm 107. I'm reading through the chronological Bible and that was the Psalm for the day. And here was the verse, it was the last verse of Psalm 107 and I kind of like the NLT these days I've been reading that. Here's how it goes. Those who are wise will take this to heart. They will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord. And I see that in our history and in your history and I'm glad that our history came together at one point. Marge. We're sorry that we can't be at the anniversary in person but we do have a wonderful opportunity to spend the month in Singapore leaving on the fourth. So we send these greetings to you. We thought separately but mine were along the same path in a way. I thought what a blessing to be in the old church and hear all about the founding of the church and how the Lord led. And then to see how the Lord directed and brought about the move to the new church on Thompson Bridge Road. And that is another whole story. And so since that time, since we've left, it's been 10 years and we hear news from time to time. But we know that just as the Lord was faithful in the early days that he's been faithful to you at Westminster. And we're so thankful for Pastor Chuck and Stacey and all of the leaders of the church and our prayers stay with you and God bless you in the next 30 years. Happy anniversary. Indeed.
And we're going to finish with one more video and then Tom, would you come up and close us in a moment. Next is Jay Kyle, talking about the start of the Hispanic, Hispanic ministry here. Jay is a missionary on the MTW staff. Has been there for 32 years with a special focus on Mexico and Central America. Beth Timberlake Orapesa was an intern with Kyle's in Mexico and she met Alejandro. Jay then worked with Westminster leadership to begin our Hispanic ministry and find Alejandro and Beth. Jay is now with Redeemer City, with Redeemer City to City Ministries working for church planning in cities all throughout the world. He's the director and city catalyst of church planting in Asia and Liz and Manhattan with his wife Marine. And could we have that video? Hi, I'm Jay Kyle and I live in New York City but back in 1998, I had some really good meetings in the fall with the all force and also the stewards. Brad and Kathy were concerned about all of the different people moving in from Mexico and the need to be able to reach out and to help meet their needs and to minister to them and bring them into a relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, Tom and Margaret Stewart had that desire and other members at Westminster Presbyterian Church. This led to them inviting the auto passes to work at the church and in the community, they're in Gainesville and Chestnut Mountain and other areas to be able to reach out to people that were moving in that didn't have family and needed community and need to hear the gospel. And it's a wonderful thing what you all have done. Alejandro and Beth have been wonderful friends to my wife and I and our family and I know that their love, dearly loved by the church community there in Gainesville. The Lord continue to bless you in your ministry that is not only reaching people within Gainesville but also into other places like Mexico and other parts of the world. This is a great celebration 30 years that you're going to have right now. God bless. Bye-bye now.
Before our closing prayer, we did have a it's a virtual scrapbook. It's not chronological but it covers pictures that we had in our archives or people gave us and sent in and Seth Wallace did a lot of work and put it all together so if you would play that and then I'll close this. Let's pray together. It is good to come to your house with your people to remember and rejoice in your faithfulness and your love is that which unites us and binds us together not only here but in eternity. We give praise to you, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, which you have done in the 30 years here in this town and the impact that is spread around the world. We thank you for who you are for who you've brought here over the years and how you've worked in lives. We ask that you would be honored as we continue to meet together today in Jesus' name. Amen. There will be a few minutes before we are ready for worship. Don't wander too far. Thank you for being here.