God bless you

Present: Lawrence Peebles, David Torrey, Sharon Ann Berger, Bruce McMurturey, Sue Adair, Sadie Goldsmith, Herb Codington, John Gartrell, David Bonner, Hampton Hunter, Gloria Owens, Ann Felten

Meeting opened with devotion from Psalm 70 and prayer

1. Introduction of Sara Ann Berger – new pastor of Whitmire PC.
2. Awaken – part II Activate scheduled for next weekend will be put off until January. The next Awaken will also be in January.
3. Availability of substitute preachers – Cody Kune (retired) Seminary Students and Doug. Lance Taylor – contact.
4. LRD – 250^th anniversary celebration – 180 signed the register.  Duncan Creek celebrated 247^th – also a good turnout.
5. Display and Article at Clinton Museum – Elaine Thorpe runs archive section of PC Library, has good resources on reserve for Cluster use.  Piedmont and Rocky Springs also have historical interest.
6. Thanksgiving – (BLT) 11-20-2011 – covered dish dinner at Thornwell dining hall with service to follow at Church at 7:00 PM.  PC Men’s Choir to sing.
7. Food Bank issues of needed food discussed.  The need has already shown increase from last year and is expected to continue to rise. The Lutheran food bank has closed.  Discussion of asking for a specific food group each month.  For now one pound bags of beans and/or rice, pasta, pasta sauce and peanut butter are needed.  A flyer will be made for display in the cluster churches.
8. Haiti – 12 will be going with Herb in December for the pastors’ seminar.  Requesting financial support for pastors who will be attending. Cluster has no funds at present.
9. Older Adult Ministry – Elaine has given the resources from Older Adult Ministry. Sue and Phil Adair will help, also Bruce McMurturey with this ministry. Contact list and information is available.
10. Requests to share re: Clustering. Pendleton Presbytery, Foothills Presbytery.  DVD’s of the cluster are available.
11. CIH – Pete Petersen, founder of this ministry spoke at Wee Kirk in October, every year there are international students who do not have placement in a program. Request for a couple of folks from cluster churches to co-coordinate CIH next year.
12. Joplin, MO – Bethany Presbyterian Church of John Calvin Presbytery has asked for workshops on clustering.  They have small membership churches in the presbytery.  Herb will go and would like Cerissa Kimball to go.  He is asking the cluster to provide a small honorarium for her to go– $100. GA may fund her airfare.  Motion made, seconded and carried to give Cerissa an honorarium of $100 if she is able to attend.
13. Treasurer’s report – Most of our funds are designated for the food bank.
14. John to check on cluster website and set up Face book account.
15. New checks are needed for the Cluster.  We need to get our house in order with 501-C3 status. Currently, $$ donated to cluster is not tax deductible.  We need by-laws.  There is a question as to whether such exist at present.
16. Status of Joanna PC – no formal decisions other that that Neil Crisp is going to retire the end of the year.  Should we plan a formal closing celebration?  Closing has not been submitted to presbytery for approval yet.
17. PC USA business
    1. PC President will retire the end of this year. They need prayer for the new person and the search committee.
    2. Recommendation to GA next summer to abolish all synods and have 5 regional councils instead.
    3. Small Church Association – will receive no funds from synod in the future.
    4. Thornwell will make covenants with presbyteries when this happens.
    5. Cut back on staffing in Presbyteries. Savannah has already done this.
    6. Fellowship Meeting in Orlando in January.
    7. Pastor at Shandon reports they may be going with Next Church/
    8. First Church Greenville planning to leave PC USA.

No Meeting in December

Next Meeting– January 8^th @ 2:30 @ Thornwell.

February Meeting – February 5 – 2:30 @ Lisbon

March Meeting – March 4—2:30 @ Queens

Meeting closed with prayer.

Respectfully submitted, Ann Felten, Clerk of Cluster

Present : Lawrence Peebles, Herb Codington, David Torrey, David Bonner, Pat Welch, David and Shauna Young, Sue Adair, Sandra Johnson, Ann Felten

Meeting begun with devotion from Matthew Chapter 14 and prayer.

1. Evaluate the Cluster Bash – Where are we? Some representatives were at the Bash for the first time from 6 churches. What kind of events would be useful at this time in our history? Do we want to continue to do something in mid-July?

Ideas: History Tour : 5 cluster churches are very old. Duncan Creek and Little River Dominick are pre-revolutionary war, Bethany and Rocky Springs are pre-Civil War and Piedmont is Reconstruction era.

4-5 Cluster Churches are rooted in Mill communities – Issues of how to minister in textile communities, rural areas?

Pulpit swap familiarizes churches with other pastors in the cluster. Helpful when one of the pastors is unavailable and another needs to help out.

Small Church Sunday – Start at 5:00 PM, have fewer displays – focus – evening worship and pulpit exchange.

2. Engage young people – BSYC – Ohio Conference on Creative Ministries – Puppets –

Todd will have event each Sunday evening in September – lecture, food, concert, etc.

Presentation by Pat Welch and Shauna Young re: the Conference on Creative Ministries and vision for future use with cluster churches. Lecture starting at 5:00 with finger food and social at 6:00PM. Concert will start at 6:30 PM the evening this is offered, with finger foods at 6:00 PM.

3. Officer Training event re: n-Fog which is not as detailed as the previous Book of Order with more left to the discretion of the session. Alan will lead the training in November? Probably on a Sunday. Probably adopt the old Book of Order as by-law until we understand the n-Fog. Unknown where this will be held at this time. An example of the changes is that Pastors are now termed ”teaching elders” no longer Ministers of Word and Sacrament.

4. Musician from Hilton Head to give a concert in Sept at Todd. Asking cluster to help underwrite his cost of $500. Agreed to cover up to $250 after the offering is counted.

5. DVD for Cluster can be seen on U-tube, Cluster website, Presbytery website, etc. Cost underwritten by GA and PFR will include making DVD copies.

6. Event in Haiti first week in December- help folks to go or underwrite cost to Haitian pastors.

7. Joanna Church still undecided what should happen there.

8. Specific ministries need to be “lodged” in a specific cluster church for longevity.

9. CIH appeal made to cluster churches for assistance in coordinating this program.

10. Issue of Clustering – Requests continue to surface – latest from San Antonio, Texas. With DVD, interest will increase.

11. Information- GA program “For such a time as this”. Stats = 550 open positions in churches, yet 2200 looking for a call. 1,000 to 2,000 in training for clergy.

Program will fund 1/3, GA 1/3, Congregation 1/3 for 2 years if new pastor will take 2 or more churches. Deadline to apply is November. Debt forgiveness for new pastor also built into the program.

12. Host meeting in September – Todd will prior to the evening program. Meeting at 4:00 PM on 9-4-2011.

13. Re-Focus Event – 9-9 and 9-10 – Commitments needed for Awaken in Cluster by end of August.

14. Book – “Already gone” – why young folks are not in church.

15. Matching fund- Laurens Memorial Home needs generator for when power outage will be matched up to $50,000,

16. Hospice fundraiser – Flight of the Dove on 20th of month.

Meeting closed with prayer

Respectfully submitted, Ann Felten, Clerk of Cluster

1. Older Adult Ministry- Elaine Bishop – (864-697-5780) 32 participants in most recent outing. Mission outreach of this group to homes with residents with disability needs. Party for Christmas not as successful as hoped, 7 OAM members, 4 residents, and 2 employees.  However, all had a good time and one resident committed his life to Jesus.
2. Joint youth ministry – only 2 youth in Little River Dominick, other small churches are the same.  The cluster needs to plan doing something with the youth or we will lose them.
3. Parish Configurations / Networking – Lawrence Peebles – Currently serves on Presbytery COM, Thornwell Board, Cluster and Little River Dominick. Cost of full time pastor is a minimum of $45,000/ year. Cluster Churches need to form a parish and hire several pastors. Motion made, seconded, carried – Presbytery staff will present a forum on this subject and the Cluster will host it. Isaiah 43 “forget the former things…”God is doing a new thing.
4. Website – John Gartrell (864-684-9004) check out our website and submit feedback.  www.laurenscluster.org

1. Missional Congregation Studies using “A Field Guide for Missional Churches. Todd, Queens will host the studies.  Who are we and what are we about? Recommend begin the first Sunday in February – not decided on start date.
2. ASC – St. Simons Island , GA May 16, 17, 18.  Synod Grant from GA to provide some scholarships.  More info to come. Re-focusing event – Personal Renewal begins the program. More info to come.

1. Conferences in other Presbyteries – Feb 25-27 Central Nebraska Presbytery  41 Churches – 20% the size of Trinity Presbytery.

1. Albania, brief update from Liz Codington, she will be available to cluster churches for more in-depth reports. (864-923-8228)
2. Sudan Partnership- Bill Andress will come to speak to us in the future. He is the point man in the denomination on Sudan Partnership.  Sudan Network met in Louisville in December. Trinity Presbytery has been involved for the past 20 years.
3. Living Waters for the World Ministry – Haiti and other developing countries. We need to build water purifiers in Sudan. Members of Sudan Partnership to go in February and build the first system in Piebor.

1. 5th Sunday Hymn Sing 1/30, 5/29, 7/31,10/30
2. Cluster Meetings – 2/6 – “96”  2:30 PM

–by Judi Merritt

In the early 1990s, a group of pastors of smaller membership churches in one South Carolina county got together for prayer, study, discussion and fellowship. Out of that grew the Greater Laurens County Cluster of Smaller Membership Churches, an exciting model for ministry that is responding creatively to the call to “do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.”

Working together, these congregations have sent seventeen tons of relief goods to the hurricane-ravaged Dominican Republic. Moreover, members go to Haiti and the Dominican Republic on mission trips each year. Closer to home, the cluster has partnered with students at Presbyterian College in Clinton in mission trips and service projects in the community. The cluster also hosts international students each Christmas through Christmas International House, a hospitality and peacemaking program of the denomination.

Every summer the cluster sponsors a week-long residential camp for youth. This program of Bible study, puppetry, mime, mission education, journalism, and recreation offers youth ways to live out their faith in the larger community. Activities range from cleaning up cemeteries and repairing homes to visiting in nursing homes and centers for the disabled.

Cluster churches have come together in worship and musical programs as well as meals and special prayer events. Currently, the cluster is developing an older adult ministry.

From worship to outreach, from youth to older adults, this cooperative parish model is a practical working out of Presbyterian connectedness. Not only are these smaller churches surviving, but they are reaching out beyond themselves, responding to Christ’s mandates to go and make disciples and to minister in his name.

—Herb Codington, Ann Felton, Sadie Hunter Goldsmith, Hampton Hunter, Lawrence Peebles, and Lucie Eggleston, Greater Laurens County Cluster of Smaller Membership Churches

Prayer
Holy God, you have called your people into communities of faith with the promise of your presence where two or three are gathered. For rural congregations challenged by declining populations and inner-city churches buffeted by changing neighborhoods, pour out your spirit of love, hope, and purpose to inspire them with your vision for their future. We ask all this in Christ’s name. Amen.

Daily Lectionary and Hymns
2 Sam. 7:1–14a
The God of Abraham Praise
PH 488, HB 89, WB 587

Ps. 89:20–37
How Firm a Foundation
PH 361, HB 369, WB 425

Eph. 2:11–22
The Church’s One Foundation
PH 442, HB 437, WB 582
Make Us One, Lord
STF 2224

Mark 6:30–34, 53–56
Come and Find the Quiet Center
STF 2128
Come Away with Me
STF 2202

Daily Lectionary
Ps. 19, 150 Ps. 81, 113
1 Sam. 23:7–18
Rom. 11:33–12:2; Matt. 25:14–30

Originially available from http://www.pcusa.org/missionyearbook/Jul/19.htm

Three small Presbyterian congregations in Laurens County, South Carolina—Bethany (126 members), Lydia (30 members), and Todd Memorial (42 members)—are now functioning as one cooperative parish, experiencing renewal in both their congregational life and in their missional outreach. Together they have energy and synergy—the capacity to do more than they were able to do going solo.

From the formation of the parish, the three congregations’ relationship has been lay-driven. Seven ministry teams have been formed (Older Adults, Youth, Local Mission, Global Mission, Nurture, Fellowship, and Worship) incorporating members from each of the three congregations. They are building relationships, exchanging ideas, and making plans for in-depth, service-oriented ministry together. Beyond joint worship and study (most recently Reggie McNeal’s book The Present Future), they have launched two very significant initiatives:

• With the assistance of church consultant George Bullard (Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation), the three congregations have begun an eight-month “spiritual strategic journey” that includes “100 Days of Prayer and Discernment.” Each congregation will be divided into triplets, meeting ten times during the “100 Days” to prayerfully discern what the Holy Spirit is calling the congregation to be and to do. After training and meeting together for initial prayer and preparation, the excitement is growing!
• The Local Mission Team is focusing on the Lydia Mill Community of three hundred households to do hands-on ministry. The other congregations in the community – Church of God, Pentecostal Holiness, and Baptist Church – are now joining the Presbyterians in this effort, as are the city manager and students from nearby Presbyterian College.

These three smaller membership congregations – Bethany, Lydia, and Todd, the “BLT Parish,” – are beginning to discover what God can do when they combine their strengths to cooperate in His mission under the guidance and power of His Spirit.

–Rev. Herb Codington