Chapter Eight
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In the years immediately after Hart arrived, Holy Cross showed a new sense of purpose, a desire to put the problems of the past behind it. A committee began to study rewriting the church constitution, which was reported to be “badly out of date,” but the most important event in the early 1980s was the addition of a new educational annex.
So much of a church is the day-to-day, week-to-week schedule that does not include great events or controversies. In those years, Holy Cross started a puppet ministry with eight young people and two adult supervisors. It added an 8:30 service (later changed to 9), and in general looked for ways to find a deeper and richer relationship with God and Jesus Christ.
Still, church records often report on major events simply because they take such prolonged effort. That was the case with the new education annex, and the building committee went to work in February 1984, hoping to have the addition ready for occupation no later than the summer of 1985. Ed Helmey was in charge of this. (Note: See interview with Ed Helmey later in this history.)
Holy Cross Evangelical Lutheran Church had much to celebrate on Oct. 7, 1984. Not only was the church growing again and not only did it have a new pastor and a new purpose. It was celebrating its 25th anniversary. The world had changed dramatically since 1959, and of that congregation, only two charter members remained: Mrs. H. H. Brittain and Miss Dora Mollenhoff.
Some of the former pastors came, as did former members who had moved on but wished to celebrate with the congregation of Holy Cross. The program printed the roster of pastors:
Ernie Parrish—1955-1959
Arne Markland—1959—1961
Edward Breuer—1961-1967
Robert Hauss—1967—1973
Kenneth Morelock—1974—1979
Cole Reasin—1980
Harvey Huntley—1980—1982
James Clark—1982
David Hart—1982—
The service began with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in B-flat Major. Bach, a Lutheran himself, is at the center of Lutheran music and so the selection of his work to begin the 25th anniversary service was appropriate.
Presiding minister and homilist for the day was Rev. Gerald Troutman, bishop of the Southeastern Synod. The entrance hymn was the familiar and much-loved “O God Our Help,” followed by an apostolic greeting and the Kyrie from the Mass in G major by Franz Schubert. Other hymns of the day were “Lift High the Cross” and “Now Thank We All Our God.” Special music included a solo, “Go, Congregation, Go,” a 16th century Moravian hymn, and the choir’s rendition of “Go Not Far from me, O God” by Zingarelli.
A church is not its bureaucratic structure of course, but its people, and so it is perhaps right at this point to mention some of those taking leadership roles at Holy Cross at the time of its 25th anniversary.
Member of the Church Council were: Linda Bennett, June Gnann, Edgar Helmey, Gordon May, Eileen Paulin, George Pearson, Sonya Pileggi, William Spratling, Edward Staniek, Calvin Stansell, Ralph Verrastro, and Stanley Wallace. The anniversary committee consisted of Shirley Marks, Ralph Verrastro, Berdia Brittain, Miriam Huebner, Pat Snyder, Willard Snyder, and Morene Williams.
On the Reception Committee for the day were Berdia Brittain, June Gnann, Elma Helmreich, Miriam Huebner, Audrey Kattenhorn, Eileen Paulin, Diana Pearson, Elva Radcliffe, Midge Spratling, Toni Stansell, Morene Williams, Glenna Wilson, and Judy Verrastro.
Those assisting in the service were lectors, Berdia Brittain and Edward Staniek; communion assistant, Miriam Huebner; organist/choirmaster, Joseph DeLoach; soloist, Mary Fritz; crucifer, Eric Longman; torchbearers, Annelie Klein and Vicky Saye; acolyte, Jake Wakefield; book bearer, Wesley Thomas; and trumpet soloist, Edward Sandor. Fritz and Sandor were faculty members visiting from the University of Georgia.
Then, as now, the church’s most active members shouldered many roles and much of the load!
A short history of Holy Cross—the only kind compiled until the current effort—was printed in the back of the bulletin. The prayer of the day is worth repeating, because it encapsulated much of the pride of Holy Cross in what had been accomplished:
“O God, you have promised through Your Son to be with your Church forever. We give you thanks for those who founded this community of believers and for the signs of your presence in our Congregation. Increase in us the Spirit of faith and love, and make us worthy of our heritage. Knit us together in the Communion of Saints and make our fellowship an example to all believers and to all nations, we pray through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
With the new educational annex completed in 1985, the church set out on its next ambitious goal: the purchase of a pipe organ for Holy Cross. The organ had been at the heart of church worship for more than a thousand years, but there were those in some congregations who were going to audio tape tracks for music (later CDs) and who were switching entirely to contemporary, pop-oriented music.
Lutherans (fortunately, we believe!) don’t give away history so fast. Pipe organs have been the glory of the church for hundreds of years, and the craft and art of organ building had reached an amazing height by the time of Bach (1685-1750). In fact, Bach was known largely in his own time as one of the greatest organists in Europe.
So the idea that Holy Cross should have a real pipe organ and not an electronic version was both visionary and courageous. In fact, plans for a pipe organ at Holy Cross went all the way back to 1982, but other needs came first. After the new annex was first used on Sept. 22, 1985, and dedicated on Oct. 6, the church was ready to go full-bore on selecting and purchasing a pipe organ.
At first, the church invited three firms to bid (later expanded to five), and each company came to present its plan. The Council knew from the outset that it would be an expensive proposition: Pipe organs aren’t retail items stored in a warehouse somewhere. They must be crafted and built for the space available, and installing and tuning such a vast and complicated instrument is a slow, painstaking process. After listening to the companies’ pitches, in late 1986 Holy Cross signed contracts with the Schantz Organ Company for a pipe organ, which would cost, installed, just under $63,000—a huge sum for a relatively small congregation.
As it turned out, the organ would not be installed until 1988, but that length of time was not unusual. Church member Stan Wallace in early December 1987 visited the Schantz factory in Orrville, Ohio, to check on progress, and Mike Martin Construction Company got the bid for preparatory work for the installation in early 1988.
If a pipe organ means long-term commitment, then Holy Cross’s decision to purchase one must have felt like an important marker on the congregation’s journey of faith.
Change was in the air by 1987, because Holy Cross knew that on January 1, 1988, it would become part of the new Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It’s worth repeating how the combination of several groups came together:
“The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was finally born at its constituting convention in Columbus, Ohio, April 30-May 3, 1987. The three churches had "closing conventions" the day before, taking care of constitutional matters and saying good-bye.
“At 12:01 a.m., Central Standard Time, January 1, 1988, the ELCA became the legal successor to its predecessors, a mosaic reflecting not only the ethnic heritages of traditional Lutherans through its original churches, but also the full spectrum of American culture in which it serves, proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.”
The history of Christian denominations, of course, is rich and sometimes rapid. Christianity, in practice, might be compared to a prism. Going in one side is the light of Christ and the promise of God, but what comes out the other side has differing “colors”—emphases on what is important and what like-minded believers profess. In a day when many denominations are, sadly, narrowing their focuses, the ELCA has worked hard to be more inclusive with each passing year. This branch of Lutheranism prides itself not on what it forbids but on what it includes. Of course hard questions never have easy answers, and the church has struggled with many contemporary issues. But it has studied and thought, considered and prayed. The result is a church with an aura of openness about it and a joy in replacing judgment with love.
So on New Year’s Day 1988, Holy Cross, which had been part of the slowly gathering tide of numerous more-moderate Lutheran groups, found itself within a new, stronger community of faith. That April, the church also dedicated the new pipe organ, which had been delivered and installed over a four-day period in January.
With that winter came sickness and a number of deaths in the congregation. It was also struggling financially—something small churches always face, it seems. It was also the year that the church began using, for the first time, what records quaintly call a “microcomputer,” though there wasn’t a “word-processed” annual report for another three years!
The year 1989 saw Holy Cross celebrating its 30th anniversary, and it held a special service and a party to celebrate. The following year, the roofing of the sanctuary had begun to deteriorate and was replaced at a cost of $638. Classrooms got new coats of paint, and the church obtained a sign for out front.
By 1992, donations had strongly rebounded, and the church formed a children’s choir. The following year, the parking lot was resurfaced and the congregation approved the installation of a new rank of organ pipes. The building underwent more repairs, and in the late summer, pledges began to fall behind.
But while Holy Cross had the same ebb and flow of support that all churches face, it had one constant that had long since given the church a real sense of stability: the pastorship of Rev. David Hart. In 1992, he had been with Holy Cross for a decade, and in 2002, the church would have a special time of praise for Hart, who at that time had been with Holy Cross for an astonishing 20 years.
In 1992, the church took another step toward permanence: the installation of beautiful stained-glass windows.
Money had been set aside for stained-glass windows way back when Holy Cross was at its Alps Road site, and though they were never bought there, when the new church was built, space was built into the window frames for stained glass panels. While the church increased its giving and prayed for help, the windows would not have been installed without a sizeable donation from Richard and Miriam Huebner, in memory of their daughter, Joan.
The dedication service for the windows on Dec. 20, 1992, included the story of how the windows came to be installed:
“Selection of the windows was not an easy task. The committee worked with three stained-glass artisans, two local and one from Dahlonega. Drawings were submitted, and the committee evaluated them for color, texture, type of glass, and design. Many hours were spent searching for the right figures to express the feeling we wished to portray.
“Marianne Parr of Parr Glass Studio, Athens, was selected because of her artistic talents. We held a series of meetings in July and August to select glass and work out the details. This continued until a contract was signed on August 17, 1992. Following the signing of the contract, preliminary sets of drawings were produced by Ms. Parr. These were approved with minor changes. On December 4 we approved a mock-up of the stained-glass windows.
“Work was then begun on the finished product. The beauty of the windows is manifested as the mutual expression for God and God’s love for us. The installation of the windows today marks yet another way to worship God and his work.”
Parr had been at that time designing stained and beveled glass windows since 1976. Her work is in numerous residences and churches in the Athens area. Her work can be seen in the chapel of the Navy Supply Corps School in Athens. Assisting Parr in the windows for Holy Cross were Athens artist Deborah Dillard and Zana Zeiller of Nashville, Tenn.
In September 1992, Parr and Dillard went to the Blenko Glass Factory of Milton, W. Va., to pick the glass used for the Holy Cross windows. All this glass was hand-blown, then broken, reheated, and rolled into flat sheets.
Pastor Hart’s prayer at the dedication was eloquent: “Be with us now and bless us as we dedicate these stained glass windows to your glory and praise; as the light which shines through them is transformed into still greater splendor, so may our lives show the beauty of your manifold gifts of grace; through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen.”
Members of the Memorials Committee were Jerry Paulin, Berdia Brittain, Carolyn Hansen and Miriam Huebner. Ex-officio members were Pastor Hart, James Hansen, Ivan Roth, Boyd Hartman, and Richard Dluhy.
The year 1994 saw Holy Cross become a “prayer partner” with Faith Lutheran of Hartwell, a new congregation. A few noteworthy facts from that year:
*Holy Cross was among the top 15 percent of Congregations in the Southeastern Synod in support of the Synod and church-wide benevolence;
*Some 20 percent of the congregational giving at HC went to support ministries outside the congregation; and
*The church claimed to be a “local leader” in service and support.
Despite its pride, the church by that fall was once again facing financial challenges and briefly considered borrowing from its capital fund for operating expenses. Fortunately, the congregation came through generously and that was avoided.
One goal for 1995 reflected the fact that Holy Cross was beginning to take seriously the fact that it had reached its 40th anniversary from the time it began as a mission church. It planned for the creation of an archivist program for Holy Cross records and memorabilia. Such a program was brought up as being needed in annual reports for several years, but apparently it was never put into practice, and church records, crammed in cardboard filing boxes, remained in closets gathering dust.
Chapter 9
