2 Churches building in Oak Grove area
If you travel the Roanoke Valley’s busy western perimeter highway, Electric Road, you may have noticed earth moving in the central area known as Oak Grove.
The equipment and piles of dirt come from a $2 million updating of Our Lady of Nazareth Catholic Church and a block north a future congregation of a new Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), Christ the King.
The building going on at the big Catholic parish covers updating and renovations and represent some accommodations to the times. “It’s going upwards, not so much outwards,” a staff member explained on a tour in late summer.
This means, according to an informative brochure supplied the membership, a new, quiet energy-efficient heating and air conditioning system, new energy-efficient lighting enhanced by clerestory windows between the roof and the top of the walls, a new sound system and padded pews in a semi-circle facing the altar with its life-sized Crucifix of San Damiano.
The higher roof will be visible from Electric Road. Added to the older building, occupied in 1976 as the modernizing changes of Vatican Council II came to Roanoke, is a covered entrance. It shelters those arriving from the parking lot when the weather is bad and will especially benefit those who move more slowly and those attending occasions like weddings and funerals.
Construction at Nazareth began in June and might – with luck – be done by Christmas. Hughes Associates is the architect with R.L. Price of Roanoke the contractor.
Changes to the worship area necessitated a temporary move to the Fellowship Hall for services throughout the fall. With several Masses each weekend, the building committee decided to adjust to this inconvenience rather than move such articles as altar and other liturgical objects to an outside site like the Salem Civic Center that has been used for some special events.
The Catholic Church’s new neighbors are excited too, especially since their permanent home has been a decade in coming. The Catholic staff person said the Presbyterians “are in our prayers,” in itself a symbol of changing times. A half-century ago, the two Christian groups ignored one another because of hostilities going back 500 years.
Both congregations have their own histories.
Christ the King PCA was begun as a mission of Westminster Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) on Peters Creek Road Northwest. That congregation was once known as Melrose Presbyterian and with a long-time pastor tended to conservative interpretation of Scripture. With “white flight” from Old Northwest to the western suburbs in the 1960s, along with the union of southern and northern branches of the denomination, leadership at Westminster withdrew from the more familiar Presbyterian Church U.S.A. A more traditionalist body (“in America”) came into being.
Aware of the expanding Southwest County suburbs, Westminster’s leaders encouraged some of its people to start a new church in Oak Grove. Nearly five acres was bought. A nucleus of folk began meeting at 10:15 a.m. each Sunday in the cafeteria of the nearby North Cross School.
It took longer than expected to clear hurdles and raise money for a worship area and education/fellowship space with an indefinite price tag of several million, the staff informant said.
A year ago a pastor, John Pennylegion, was called and growth has progressed, if slowly. It’s expected to be well into 2018 before occupancy. Price Builders of Rocky Mount is its contractor.
Nearby the Presbyterians’ Catholic neighbors have grown used to many changes, some of which are reflected in the renovations. Their one continuing constant has been their ecumenically minded pastor, Msgr. Joe Lehman.
With a shortage of Catholic priests, their bishop in Richmond now shifts his all-male, celibate clergy at least each decade or sooner. Lehman, who bears the honorary title of monsignor for his leadership in the Diocese of Richmond, has led Nazareth for 20 years. He came from Norfolk and has had many assistants.
Our Lady of Nazareth parish dates from 1914. For years it was in the building in West End now used as the Roanoke Area Ministries shelter for the homeless. With the relocation to the suburbs more than 40 years ago the new building was designed with a simplicity considered befitting to the contemporary church envisioned by the late Pope John 23rd.
Traditionalists hated the contrast to the landmark St. Andrew’s on the city’s northern hill. Gradually, the current Pope Francis has to many brought a sense of moderation; cooperation in ministries to help needy people has become common among Catholics, Protestants and the “middle way” Anglicans in the Roanoke Valley and elsewhere.
Tuesday noon recitals starting Sept. 12
Beginning Tuesday, Sept. 12, at noon a free recital of sacred selections by local musicians is scheduled at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in downtown Salem. It will be followed each second Tuesday by lunch and is open to the community. Time will cover the lunch hour.
The artist for next week’s performance had not been chosen at press time, but on Oct. 12 soprano Judith Cline, accompanied by guitarist Bill Krause, will perform. She will be followed on Nov. 14 by David Charles Campbell, director of music at St. John’s Episcopal Church of Roanoke. The Dec. 12 program will feature The Matheson String Trio family group.
In a staff change at the church Emily Shelton, a young adult member of the parish, has been chosen Program Director. A graduate of the University of Virginia, she has spent the past year in Boston with the Episcopal Service Corps and is considering entering a theological seminary. She will replace Allison Netting, director of the church’s St. Anne’s Day School, who will now give her full time to the coordination of programs there.
CHURCH GROUPS PREPARE FOR ANNUAL CROP WALK
On Sunday, Oct. 8, the annual CROP Walk to help reduce world hunger is planned. Covering four miles through parts of the City of Roanoke, it will begin with registration at 1:30 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 2010 South Jefferson Street. Those who cannot walk the full distance may register for a mile-long hike. The CROP Walk has been held since shortly after WW II when it aided the needy in Europe. It now raises funds by hikers taking pledges prior to the walk. A portion of the money pledged remains in the participating community with the remainder distributed by an international Christian agency.
The walk is popular with youth groups, retirement-age fitness hikers and others wanting to experience the inner city on foot.
UNITARIANS TO HOST INTERFAITH GATHERING
Voices of Faith, a group supporting increased understanding of religious diversity in the Roanoke area, has scheduled its second season of visits to a local house of worship on Sunday, Sept. 10, from 2-4 p.m. The site is the Roanoke Unitarian-Universalist Church at Grandin and Brandon Roads in Southwest Roanoke. Participants will learn of a typical service and may remain for refreshments. The Rev. Alex Richardson is the host minister.