CHAPTER 11
CHANGING OUR CHURCH HOME
Late in 1992 we began to realize that our little New Mission Church was having a number of internal problems. Church problems were not new to us and we weren’t considering looking for another church. Our experience was to work through church conflict and we had done it many times. I was a regular choir member and Bill participated in everything from Pinto Bean Suppers to Vacation Bible School teacher. We were used to a small congregation but my job took away a lot of time I would have liked to donate to our little church. Also, Cindi’s upcoming September wedding in Texas was capturing our attention.
It so happened that in August, I was invited to give the sermon at Berea Christian Church. Bill rarely went with me to churches because I said the same thing each time but he came along this day as we were invited to have lunch with Berea church members Bill & Polly Gilliam at their home.
We had heard that Elon Community Church was looking for a new minister and Elon’s Search Committee happened to ask New Mission to host the candidate. Elon was the first church we had visited upon moving here and we had hoped to settle there but had quickly decided it was not the place for us at that time. The candidate’s visit was to be the Sunday we were at Berea and we gave it very little thought.
We were graciously received at Berea and when we arrived at Gilliams’, Polly told us that they had also invited a few other people to lunch. As we visited in Gilliams’ family room, their first visitor arrived. His name was Arch Aitcheson. He was an Elon graduate, had served as a student pastor at Berea, was currently a pastor in New Jersey, was originally from Connecticut and had just preached at New Mission because he was the recommended candidate for Elon Community Church. We were making polite conversation with each other about our backgrounds and Arch told me he was from Watertown and we discovered we had a common friend, the pastor, Bill Zito. Then when I said we were from Hebron, he immediately told us he had been to the Hebron Church. I was thinking “you lie”; Hebron is so small that people from don’t go there! Arch then explained that he served on a search committee in the 1960’s and went to hear John Cross preach in Hebron. This prompted Bill to tell Arch that John Cross performed our wedding ceremony in 1966. To our amazement, Arch said that when John Cross left Hebron Church and became the Watertown pastor, the wedding ceremony of Arch and his wife was also performed by Rev. Cross. At this point in the conversation, we were hooked on our similarities. The ANGELS were having a party.
Lunch proceeded and the conversation became quite a game. That lunch lasted hours because we never ran out of fantastic similarities! We had the best time and the timing was perfect. We soon discovered that Arch’s wife was Liz Woolsey who had played clarinet in the Elon Marching Band with us in 1964. Arch arrived at Elon in the fall of 1966 so we had never met. It turned out that Arch was a drummer in the band and so was Bill. Arch had been a pastor in Connecticut at the time that I worked at Connecticut Conference Center so we had many common acquaintances. Liz was from New Jersey and married Arch from Connecticut. I was from Connecticut and married Bill from New Jersey. We all graduated from Elon and all played in the marching band. And now he was being called to become the minister at Elon Community Church and, unbeknownst to us, we were looking for a new church.
I think the ANGELS provided a great entertainment on purpose. We attended and joined the Elon Community UCC Church soon thereafter and know it was meant to be.
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