You Are Welcome At Eastminster Church
By John J. Duncan Jr.
This column will be published the day before Christmas Eve. I want to invite you to my church, Eastminster Presbyterian, for a beautiful candlelight service at 5:00 p.m. the night before Christmas.
If you do not have a regular church or if you are looking for a new one, I believe you would love Eastminster. I hope you will come for a visit either on Christmas Eve, or this Sunday, or both.
I have been blessed to have been a member of only two churches during my long life that has gone by so fast. I heard someone recently say that the days are so long, but the years are short. It really seems that way to me.
I was born in 1947. I was baptized in the Park City Presbyterian Church almost two years later. We lived in the Veterans Village, housing for people who had served in World War II as my father and other families there had.
The Veterans Village was located where the Austin-East football field is now. When I was four and a half years old, we moved to a new home on East Sunset Road in Holston Hills. This was a 1,400-square-foot, three-bedroom, one-bathroom house.
The Veterans Village must have been tiny because I think I cried myself to sleep the first few nights because I felt so far away from my parents. My bedroom, which I later shared with my younger brother, was separated from my parents only by a small bathroom.
In 1959 we moved from the Park City Church to Eastminster because my older sister, Beverly, had several friends in the youth fellowship there.
I am still there over 65 years later, so you can tell I love my church. Like most churches, Eastminster was hurt by Covid. We now usually have about 100 in attendance at a typical service and many more on Christmas Eve and Easter.
The minister for the last 15 years has been Sean White, who grew up in Jefferson County and came to us from Fountain City Presbyterian. He is a great, down-to-earth preacher with a wonderful sense of humor.
You will be amazed that a church as small as ours could produce such grand music led by the very talented music minister, Pam Minnich and the lovely voice of choir director, Lynn Bennett.
They bring in outside talent on many Sundays, and often Terry Gallaher or Becky Ritzmann open with a flute solo. I love the sound of a well-played flute. And our hymns are sung to the accompaniment of a 24-pipe organ. Steve Tarpy opens each service with several rings from a large, professional handbell.
Gail Winter, a retired teacher, always has a great lesson for children’s church. She uses colorful, old-fashioned flannel graphs which wow the children in this technological age.
We have a very active youth group, headed by Missey Hurd, which goes to the beach every summer and just got back from a trip to the Ark Encounter in Kentucky.
We have a wonderful meal every Wednesday evening at 5:30, often led by master chef Donna Hager and her husband, Bruce, with a short lesson for those not at choir practice.
Eastminster is filled with kind, friendly, middle-income people. It is not snobbish at all. And being Presbyterians, no one is pushy and everyone is welcome.
Most people come dressed very casually, including the minister when he is preaching in the pulpit. Having grown up when the minister always wore a robe when preaching, I have never fully adjusted to that.
I grew up in a time when there was such a thing as “Sunday best.” I can’t understand why announcers wear suits and ties to broadcast football games, but most people do not dress up for church.
Two or three others and I wear suits or coats and ties, but most do not. I still do it out of respect, and because I just got used to wearing suits and ties every day in my career. But no one ever feels out of place at Eastminster.
Some say the churches are filled with hypocrites. Actually, the least hypocritical people are regular church goers, people who admit that they sometimes sin and fall short of the glory of God and need help to do better.
I read recently that so many got out of the habit of going to church during Covid, and now only about 20% are regular church attendees.
I have been blessed with a wonderful life, but like everyone I have had some very tough times and some very big problems. Attending church regularly has really helped me, and I believe it will really help you, too.
I hope you will come to Eastminster Church on Asheville Highway some time, and get to know the wonderful church family there. It is well worth the visit just to see the beautiful stained glass windows there.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
