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The OPC Story
The Church is tradition,
the Church is everlasting, the Church just exists. However, churches
have lives and stories of their own, and those stories matter very
much to those who have lived them and continue to live them. Here
is our story, the OPC story.
Chapter 1 It all begins with a
church most of us have never seen. In 1989, West View Presbyterian
Church was still on Atlanta Highway. The congregation was devoted
but dwindling, and the people decided to close the doors of their
church on Easter Sunday. West View instructed the North Georgia
Presbytery to use its assets to start a new church in Clarke/Oconee
County when the time was right. This money, combined with a trust
created by the family of Cleyn Martin Cartledge, waited for ten years
to begin a new church family.
Chapter 2 Fast-forward ten
years, and the time was right. In January 1999, a New Church
Development Task Force was formed to get things started. First job:
an organizing pastor. This group, which counted Jim and Nancy Heyl
as members, got a special call about a new seminary graduate looking
for a church. They called the Reverend Pamela Driesell, and she
answered that call in August 1999. Now OPC had a pastor, and the
next step was a congregation.
Chapter 3 How does a new church
find a congregation? The Task Force was itself the first
congregation Pastor Pam had, and their job was to invite others to
come and worship. Invitations went out into the community from
friends and acquaintances to our informal gatherings on Sunday
evenings. Services were informal, and held in living rooms. No
bulletin, no hymnbooks, no piano (but there was a guitar). Usually
there were less than twenty people there at a time. But there was a
lot of laughter, sharing, and Pam’s preaching. And people kept
coming.
Chapter 4 How does a church
find a place to meet and do its work when it hardly has a budget to
work with? For Oconee Presbyterian Church, the answer was Malcom
Bridge Middle School. On March 12, 2000 (first day of Lent), OPC
held its first formal service. At first the sanctuary was in the
band room, surrounded by drums and cymbals. OPC placed adds in local
papers, and hung invitations on doorknobs. In a little while, the
OPC congregation was worshipping in what would always be called The
Holy Cafeteria. The church’s worldly goods were kept in a trailer
and unpacked (and repacked) each Sunday morning by dedicated
volunteers. The air was filled with the sound of scraping chairs as
they were put out and stacked back, but it gave members a chance to
work side by side and to get to know one another. You didn’t just
come to worship; you came to pitch in. Behind the sound of Pam’s
sermons there was always the drone of soda machines and the tumbling
of ice in the cafeteria icemaker. Amongst all this, OPC inducted its
first members on August 6, 2000 and elected a Steering Committee.
Chapter 5 The business of the
church had to be done, and when Tom Little donated office space, it
had a place to happen. Pam had an office! Later, OPC would have a
storefront on Experiment Station Road, next to a bookstore. Both
offices were the homes of the prayer group, meetings, singing, grant
writing, phone calls, and counseling sessions. They were presided
over by a volunteer secretary, Elsie Bothwell. In a way, Elsie is a
prime example of God’s love for OPC. A member of Covenant
Presbyterian, Elsie was retired from her job and presented herself as
OPC’s administrative backbone and Pam’s right hand.
Chapter 6 It didn’t take many
rounds of packing and unpacking the trailer into the Holy Cafeteria
for church members and Pam to begin looking toward having our own
building. People were still coming and joining our church in the
Holy Cafeteria. In February of 2001, with the steering hand of Norm
Grayson, OPC purchased fifteen acres of land on Hog Mountain Road.
People went out and looked at it, prayed on it, and tried to picture
a church sitting there.
Chapter 7 In October of 2001,
OPC was officially chartered at a service held at the Oconee Civic
Center, with the Rev. Pam Driesell installed as the church’s first
pastor. Now, instead of a Steering Committee, Oconee Presbyterian
Church had its first Session. Worship still happened in the Holy
Cafeteria, accompanied by a young couple, Dawn and Patrick Davis, as
music leaders. Lots of guitar music and keyboard, a sweet and far
cry from Dr. Skip Taylor conducting today next to our grand piano.
There was a square dance in that cafeteria, as well as baptisms,
holidays, and one wedding. Pastor Pam preached on. All the while,
new people from the community were coming to visit OPC, and many
stayed. The OPC kids hunted for Easter eggs out where the carpool
drivers parked. New members kept coming and joining. Our first
Vacation Bible School spread itself out in the halls of the school.
More new members. It was great fun, but that trailer wasn’t
packing itself. OPC needed a building of its own.
Chapter 8 Church buildings do
not happen quickly or easily, but we were blessed with Norm Grayson,
a prime piece of land, and some money to get plans together. On June
29, 2003, before worship, there was a groundbreaking, followed by the
OPC Cornerstone Service and Barbeque on August 17. We had a
cornerstone, and we were ready for a building. The OPC Capital
Campaign Committee started asking for the money to build it.
Chapter 9 In terms of the
physical spot that is Oconee Presbyterian Church, the softball field
came first. This is only fitting, as OPC had fielded a women’s
softball team since 2001. Linda Ferrara’s dear grandfather, Henry
“Bomp” Reiter , having been a lively part of the OPC
congregation, inspired his grandchildren to use their inheritance to
build us a softball field. Soon after that we had our pavilion, and
with it, the perfect spot for sunrise Easter services. The church
was here before the building ever was.
Chapter 10 Linda Ferrara was
tireless in her dedication to the planning and designing of a
building that would take us from the Holy Cafeteria to the future.
Once the construction began, she spent her time supervising the
project. Of course, she had some help: lots of church members
remember spending a Saturday morning painting the ceiling beams. And
of course, during all this time, the volunteers were unpacking and
repacking the trailer each Sunday, the secretary was answering phones
in the storefront, Pam was preaching, Sue Jacobson was on board and
people were still joining!
Chapter 11 The home of Oconee
Presbyterian Church is built on the highest point of elevation in
Oconee County, and it has felt that way to us since it was framed.
Many people in our community, some who would never even worship here,
gave extra time and treasure to make the building a reality. The
heart pine in the conference room and its special table were recycled
from old buildings and donated to us. The stained glass window was
the creation of an artist who was inspired by our story and made it
in seven days. The West View bell, and bricks from its building,
were salvaged by Norm Grayson to be used for OPC. One of the
building’s workers even remembered ringing that bell when he was
five. Later on, the tree at our entrance was donated in the name of
Bob Detrick, who greeted us at our entrance for so long. It all came
together from the hands of many. The building is a testament to the
idea that all gifts made to God’s church are equal and important.
Chapter 12 Due to our good
fortune in finding Pam and adding so many loyal and loving members
along the way, Oconee Presbyterian Church was surviving and growing
in a way that not all new churches do. If it wasn’t already
apparent by this time that OPC was special, the church won the Walton
Award for Outstanding New Church Development in October 2004 (along
with a $50,000 grant). One month later, on November 7, 2004, OPC
held its first Sunday service in the new building. The West View
bell rang for the first time at OPC. Goodbye, Holy Cafeteria. Hello,
steeple!
Chapter 13 Nobody was prepared
for how much the building would change us as a church. Our music
went up to the rafters, and Pam had lots more space to walk around
while preaching. Amy and Mike Neill had a place to do playdough with
the two and three year olds. There was a kids’ musical and a lot of
joyful noises as OPC children enjoyed all that space to play!
Michael and Heather Jacobson were the first to be married in the
sanctuary. We were settling in.
With a building to
call its own, OPC was able to expand its activities beyond the scope
of Sunday mornings. The Pre-Youth Group met faithfully upstairs.
The mission ministry collected blankets for the homeless, Change for
Children, and shoes for Mexico.
Nine months after we
moved into our home, countless people in New Orleans were cast out
from theirs by Hurricane Katrina. Herb Meyer and a hard-working team
of volunteers cared for three large families (19 people total),
providing everything from housing and furniture to food and support.
In 2005, Pastor Pam
began teaching classes for the Curious, Committed and Confirmed (what
we call C2 classes now). There were handbells in addition to choir
practice around the grand piano. And Phyllis Meyer embarked upon her
Saturday routine: cowboy hat, riding mower, and the smell of cut
grass.
Chapter 14 As our base became
stronger, OPC reached out more into our community. The congregation
became involved with A.C.T.S. (Area Churches Together Serving) and
fielded a basketball team as well as the softball teams. The
Theology on Tap group began to take over area restaurants. The Youth
Group sent more and more kids to Montreat. The OPC Kids’ Club
became established on Wednesday nights along with PYG. There began
to be CARE teams to reach out to our increasing numbers. Pam kept
preaching, the prayer group kept lifting us up, and people kept
coming!
Chapter 15 By 2007, Pastor Pam
had been preaching, counseling, and leading us for eight years. It
was time for a sabbatical. We couldn’t imagine ourselves without
her, but we knew she deserved to spread her wings for a summer. The
Sabbatical Committee threw a jam-packed Talent Show to get the ball
rolling, featuring talents many of us didn’t know we possessed
(many may recall the rap by Millie Evans that brought down the
house). Pam headed out with her GPS unit on May 13 of that year, and
by summer’s end she was back with stories to tell. Ann Kohler kept
us together and on track, earning her the title Clerk for Life.
Chapter 16 Many of the true
successes of OPC do not have one date on a timeline. The weekly
prayer group, led by Jim Heyl, has held up our church and its people
tirelessly. Amy and Mike Neill have taught Sunday School to every
single child who passed through the toddler stage in our congregation
(still do). Lives were changed and friendships formed as members of
the congregation set out to work with Constructiones Para Cristo and
then came home to inspire the next wave of workers. There have been
many people giving freely of their time to the community, including
the Garden Springs Trailer Park Community Project, A.C.T.S. Food
Pantry, Our Daily Bread, Interfaith Hospitality Network, and Relay
for Life. Sue Jacobson began her journey to become a pastor in 2003
and made us proud as she graduated in 2008 and was ordained in 2010.
Chapter 17 All along in the
history of OPC, special traditions have formed and deepened, as they
do with a family. We have greeted newborn babies with a rose on the
pulpit and, later, a photograph on the overhead projector. Beginning
with “Bomp”, losses were felt and commemorated by the whole
congregation. The night of making Advent Wreaths together dates back
to the Holy Cafeteria, as do the giant Easter egg hunt and the
passing of candles in a circle on Christmas Eve. The more we do
these things together, the more meaning they take on.
Chapter 18 All along in our OPC
story, we had the same hand guiding us and teaching us. Pam Driesell
gave us her vision, her creativity, her humor, her spirit and her
boundless love. Pastor Pam also must have told us a hundred times
that we are the church together, that the church is not centered
around its pastor. However, when it was time for Pam to answer a
call to Trinity in Atlanta, most of OPC had questions about how our
church would go on without her. Her last service with OPC was on
August 22, 2010. Talk about a new chapter! It is as tribute to
Pam’s work with us that we stayed together and kept things going.
Chapter 19 On November 1, 2010,
Roger Nicholson arrived in our pulpit as our interim pastor. He
brought us organization and the chance to solidify our leadership.
His tenure brought our Wednesday nights into the big leagues, with
Church Suppers. Our prayer group found new life, and our children’s
groups found lots of friends.
Chapter 20 This brings us to
today, October 23, 2011 and the chapters we are writing right now. We aren’t a new
church anymore, but we carry into the future the enthusiasm and joy
of our first ten years. Our next years will be dedicated to the goal
of passing on that joy to people who come here searching for a
community of faith. We come to worship together, all ages and
stages, and leave to be the church together.
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