New Church

Nicholasville added a new congregation in November when Apostolic Pentecostal Church opened its doors. The church, located at 104 Southview Drive, is pastored by Donivan VanWinkle and holds services at 2 p.m. on Sundays. VanWinkle, originally from Big Hill, has been working with churches in Jessamine County for more than two decades. “I’ve been a minister in this area for about 25 years going different places, so we just decided we’d try to start our own little work down here,” he said.

LANCASTER - A group of northern Garrard County residents will meet in a vacant neighborhood lot Thursday to discuss concerns over a church locating near their Rolling Meadows subdivision. Residents say they were misled when they bought their properties, and they do not want the pastor of the church, Everett Priddy, in their neighborhood. The subdivision, off Ky. 753, was developed by Dakota LLC, a development company run by Pete McEachern, who did not return calls to The Advocate for comment.

Pastors Joseph Vest and Rodney Lynch will be discussing beginning a new church with fresh ideas here in Danville. The informational meeting will be held this at 7 p.m. Monday in the PBK bank building on Hustonville Road, across from Sonic. Vest and Lynch, both Danville natives, have worked in larger churches in bigger cities and have progressive ideas of how church can be done. With this informational meeting, the two would like to share their ideas about the church of the future while gathering the pulse of those in the community who may have even given up on, "church as usual.

Grace Fellowship Church broke ground this month for its new building on an 18-acre site on U.S. 27 across from Lincoln County Ready Mix. In June, about 100 men from Carpenters for Christ, a volunteer organization based in Alabama, will arrive to begin framing up the new facility and putting it under roof. The men, who will come from as many as eight states and 29 churches, will spend the week working for free. Project coordinator Billy Pollard of Montgomery, Ala., said most of the men give up a week's vacation from their regular jobs to do the mission work.

Rev. Justin Patterson smiled as he looked out over an incredible view on Chrisman Mill Road. "Isn't it beautiful here?" he said, gesturing toward the panorama visible from the top of the hill which will be the future site of St. Athanasius Orthodox Church. "Just to be up here on the top of this hill in the morning is such a joy. " The church will be built on 17 and 1/2 acres which the church purchased recently. St. Athanasius, which has been located in a small building in Lily Springs Shopping Center for the past five years, has 75 members and is the only Eastern Orthodox church in Jessamine County.

STANFORD - You could see the writing on the wall at Grace Fellowship Church on Saturday. In fact, you could see the writing all over the place, on nearly every wall. Members of the church held a wall-raising ceremony Saturday morning, where they spent about an hour writing on the new wall studs of their church with multi-colored Sharpies. The walls had just been raised with the help of the mission organization Carpenters for Christ. Grace Fellowship's pastor Vola Brown said church members heard of Carpenters for Christ through connections with Baptist Builders of Kentucky.

HARRODSBURG - From the reaction of members of Carpenter's Christian Church off the U.S. 127 bypass, it appears that the large stained-glass piece of art that decorates the front wall of the sanctuary is a cross that parishioners are more than willing to bear. "It is absolutely beautiful, breath-taking," said Barbara Sallee, church secretary, reflecting the consensus of church members. "I knew that we would be getting a stained-glass cross for the area behind the pulpit but never in my wildest imagination did I think it would be so stunning.

LANCASTER - When Rolling Meadows residents in northern Garrard County gathered Thursday night to sign a petition against a church locating in their neighborhood, the gathering quickly elevated to a heated debate between residents and members of the church. New Mission Worship Center, currently located on Hustonville Road in Danville, bought a nine-acre lot in May from Dakota LLC, the company that developed the subdivision off Ky. 753. Many residents became infuriated after learning that the church plans to relocate to their neighborhood.

In 1963, I was appointed to serve a congregation in northern Kentucky, an area about which I knew nothing. The only person I knew in that community was a retired pastor I considered a friend.  The county-seat town had received national publicity; a nationally circulated magazine had designated it “Sin City USA.”  Although I moved to that community with a great deal of apprehension, the appointment turned out to be a most pleasant experience....

Saint Athanasius Orthodox Church has found a place to build a new home - but they have to practice a little patience and planning first.  The parish is working on building its new church on the 2.4-acre lot located at the northeast intersection of Lime Lane and Peachtree Drive. Two days after the final approval of the parish's preliminary plat by the Nicholasville Planning Commission on Aug. 27, the church members closed on the property. “The closing went smoothly ... and the building program we are currently gearing up for is the product of several years of work,” Father Justin Patterson said.

LANCASTER - As the humidity changed into rain, and the rain changed into abundant sunshine, the volunteers of Carpenters for Christ continued working as much as possible to frame up the new Lancaster Church of the Nazarene.  Under a nearby tent, other volunteers, some from the church itself, watched the construction as they provided food, water and support. Tonia Campbell, of Lancaster, was one of them and said she recognizes the need for a new church, as the current one is regularly packed.

Jan. 25, 1987  A look at Kentucky Baptist mountain missions was presented by the Rev. Ross Figert during the January potluck luncheon meeting of the Live Longer and Like It Club at Central Baptist Church. The speaker noted during the meeting, Kentucky Baptists only averaged one new church a year during 1970-80 in mountain communities. The goal now is 20 per year, he said. Local artist Ruth G. Snowden is now exhibiting two paintings in the Lexington Art League juried traveling show.

An inconspicuous sign sits in the window of one of downtown Danville's largest, most notable pieces of architecture. The sandwich board leaning against the glass announces that the old Presbyterian Church building at the corner of Third Street and Broadway is now the home of the Danville Independent Methodist Church and encourages anyone without a church home to join the small congregation for their Sunday service. The irony of a church started in large part because of a disagreement over whether to leave a historic downtown landmark now occupying another church building long ago abandoned as a place of worship and reimagined as, among other things, an antique mall, is not lost on those who helped form the new church.

1911 W.S. Fitzgeral d, of Danville and President of the Jailers Association of Kentucky, has completed all the arrangements for the fifth annual meeting of that organization. It will be held in New Castle, Henry County, in September. The program contains topics for discussion that will be of interest to the state generally as well as to the jailers. Questions such as lynching, the handling of mobs and better sanitary conditions in the prisons will be discussed.

Garrard County native Loretta Montgomery did the sensible thing - went to college, graduated with a business management degree, took a “real world” job. But the smart plan never felt like the right one, and Montgomery realized the path she should be on wasn't one she could see at all. “Now, I let God lead me,” she said. “He has shown me passions that I never thought I had.” Primary among those is her enthusiasm for children's ministry. Montgomery, 35, leads a successful after-school program she developed for in-need children at Indian Hills Christian Church in Danville.

Among all the pastoral back roads in all of Kentucky, few would challenge the serenity, remoteness and tranquillity of Butchertown Road in Casey County. This is where Friendship Baptist Church sits on top of a hill — surrounded by a series of small mountains the locals call knobs. In many ways, it's a place where time appears to stand still. The small church looks just like it did 50 years ago when Buddie Southerland became a deacon  in April, 1961. But the church’s history goes back much longer than that.

The first of what its organizers say will become an annual 5K benefit for Refuge Temple House of God raised about $350 in donations to go toward the building of its new church. The Refuge Temple House of God is located at 133 Third St., and its new building will be at the same location, along with its food pantry. Princeton Reese, a member of the church, organized the 5K as the parish’s men’s fundraiser for this year. He said the event didn’t collect as much money as he would have hoped, but since this was its first year, he learned an “incredible amount as far as logistics” and what he needs to bring and how to handle registration.

Along with the Fourth of July this weekend, a local church will have another reason to celebrate — the first year of what it hopes will become an annual 5K benefit. Princeton Reese, a member of Refuge Temple House of God, located at 133 Third St., was put in charge of the church’s men’s fundraiser this year, and he decided to organize a 5K walk/run/bike event. He has been organizing the event since March, and the donations will support the building of the parish’s new church and its food pantry operations.