I contributed the following recollections for the upcoming 200th anniversary of First United Methodist Church of Shelbyville:<\/p>\n\n\n
First United Methodist Church of Shelbyville was the classroom\nfor much of my earliest spiritual and social development.<\/p>\n\n\n
Reverend Bill Clayton was the first pastor I had any\npersonal connection to. He was not only the pastor at FUMC but he and his wife\nwere friends of my parents and their son James was a friend of my brother\nSpencer.<\/p>\n\n\n
(We engaged in some prolonged and violent pillow fights with\nJames during those years!)<\/p>\n\n\n
I had just finished the third grade when the Claytons were\nassigned to a different church. During a Sunday morning that June, after\nworship, the congregation gathered in the basement Fellowship Hall to welcome Reverend\nJack Haskins along with his wife and their two kids.<\/p>\n\n\n
Standing in the back of the crowd of onlookers next to me,\nmy mom nudged my shoulder and said, \u201cLook, Steve, they have a little boy your\nage. You should go and say hi.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t. I was painfully shy as a child and shrugged off my\nmom\u2019s suggestion as being completely unrealistic.<\/p>\n\n\n
But God intervened in the coming weeks and Peter Haskins\nbecame my best friend. I spent a lot of time at the parsonage there on Broadway\nand Pete spent a lot of time at my house. In the 6th<\/sup> grade we went\nthrough Confirmation together and it was special to have Rev. Haskins as our\nteacher for the year. In 7th<\/sup> grade Pete and I would meet up each\nschool morning to walk to the junior high together.<\/p>\n\n\n Unfortunately, the Haskins family transferred before my 8th<\/sup>\ngrade year and suffice it to say here that the succeeding pastors and youth\npastors had little positive direct impact on my life, but my parents were\ninvolved in the youth group and they made sure the program stayed active and\nspiritually grounded.<\/p>\n\n\n In those years we took trips to Florida on \u201cGod\u2019s\nNightcrawler\u201d \u2013 a bus with seating that served also as bunk beds so groups\ncould travel overnight. Also memorable were the Halloweens with the youth would\ncreate a haunted house in the church basement as a fundraiser.<\/p>\n\n\n While I was in high school, the church put a basketball goal\nin the attic and framed in a nice little classroom for Sunday school. We had\nsome good teachers along the way, but none were as impactful on my life as Tom\nand Marcia Kuhn.<\/p>\n\n\n The Kuhns challenged me and my classmates to begin a habit\nof reading a chapter of the Bible each day. Always hungry for greater depth in\nmy spiritual life, I took them up on that challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n It changed my life.<\/p>\n\n\n It\u2019s not a coincidence that, at the age of 57, I am\ncurrently working toward my Doctor of Ministry degree and my focus is on how to help believers develop a habit of personal study of Scripture.<\/p>\n\n\n For a while after college, I didn\u2019t have as much contact\nwith FUMC except on occasional visits home.<\/p>\n\n\n Then, in 1995, I felt a call to begin studies at Asbury\nTheological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. Not too long into my time there, my\nparents called to tell me that their current pastor, Alan Rumble, was taking\nthe youth to hike in the Smoky Mountains and wondered if maybe I could come\nback to Shelbyville that Sunday to fill the pulpit for him.<\/p>\n\n\n I thought, \u201cI would rather go hiking with them in the\nSmokies!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n I called Rev. Rumble to see if he could use extra help\nsupervising the trip and he gladly invited me to come along. I joined them in\nTennessee and, as a result, FUMC once again became prominent in my life \u2013 this\ntime professionally.<\/p>\n\n\n As we hiked up a mountain, one of the teens had told me that\nthe youth group had become pretty weak. He wondered if I would consider\nbecoming their youth pastor.<\/p>\n\n\n So the late 90s found me making the 3-hour trip from Asbury\neach weekend to stay with my parents and serve as the youth pastor of FUMC.\nThose were good times (overall!) and I enjoyed reconnecting with the church and\ngetting to know the families with teens.<\/p>\n\n\n Although I have no musical ability myself, I was grateful to\nplay a part in pulling together FUMC\u2019s first \u201ccontemporary\u201d worship service.\nSeveral of the teens played musical instruments, others sang, and we installed\nthe church\u2019s first video projector \u2013 a giant beast that we bought used from\nAsbury when the school updated classroom technology.<\/p>\n\n\n I could go on with memories of FUMC, but this recollection would\nbecome a small book. There\u2019s too much to say. When I got married in 2000,\nMelissa and I held our reception in the basement of the church, where we were\nthe recipients of so much love and generosity.<\/p>\n\n\n Even though it\u2019s been 25 years now since the church was a\nregular part of my life, so many individuals and families there are still near\nand dear to my heart.<\/p>\n\n\n I am so grateful to have been a part of First United\nMethodist\u2019s long record of serving the Kingdom of God. My prayer on this\nspecial anniversary is that FUMC\u2019s best days are still ahead!<\/p>\n\n\n I thank God for FUMC and Christ\u2019s body there over the years.\nThe best is yet to be!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I contributed the following recollections for the upcoming 200th anniversary of First United Methodist Church of Shelbyville: First United Methodist Church of Shelbyville was the classroom for much of my earliest spiritual and social development. Reverend Bill Clayton was the first pastor I had any personal connection to. He was not only the pastor at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5696,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695\/revisions\/5696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}