Soli deo gloriaSoli deo gloriaSoli deo gloriaSoli deo gloriaGlory to God AloneGlory to God AloneGlory to God AloneGlory to God Alone

Volume 37, Issue 11November 2011

By Pastor John Dawson

Twelve years ago, I attended a conference by Tedd Tripp on Shepherding a Child’s Heart, which followed his book (by the same

NewsletterAbingdon Presbyterian

Church

I will praise I will praise I will praise I will praise the name of the name of the name of the name of god with a god with a god with a god with a song, and song, and song, and song, and

will magnify will magnify will magnify will magnify him with him with him with him with

thanksgiving.thanksgiving.thanksgiving.thanksgiving.

Psalm 69: 30Psalm 69: 30Psalm 69: 30Psalm 69: 30

“Freedom from want”

By Norman Rockwell

In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 1 Thessalonians 5: 18

Shepherding a childShepherding a childShepherding a childShepherding a child’’’’s hearts hearts hearts heart

name) about raising children. Remarkable to me is that the conference was here in Abingdon, sponsored by the church which I would later come to pastor. Through that conference (and other things) APC has blessed me long before I was ever associated with her. God’s providence is remarkable, and sometimes has such a delightful irony.

After digesting the biblical truth of the conference and book for twelve years, five of my own children and many other children under my charge, I am preaching a series based on Tripp’s teaching. I mention his work to give full credit and to encourage others to get to know it. I am aware of several good books on child raising, but there is none better than Shepherding a Child’s Heart.

This is an important topic for all of us. Those parents with children need no extra reasons to get help in raising their children. They know the challenges all too well and feel their need for the grace of God in raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. But the rest of us need help as well, because even when we do not have children in our homes, we have children in our church. They are also children for which we are responsible. When a covenant child receives the sign of baptism, the parents are asked several questions. But the last question is given to the congregation: Do you, as a congregation, undertake the responsibility of assisting the parents in the Christian nurture of this child? Together we stand as godparents to help this family raise their children in the Lord. We need to understand the parent’s task because it is our task to help them. If we do not understand their task as parents, how can we help them?

The core of the Christian community is the Christian family. We want to be a place where the Christian family thrives. And we can also welcome people to the faith and to our congregation by helping them understand the power of Christ and the gospel for their family.

One reason why the biblical principle of Shepherding a Child’s Heart is so powerful is that it is centered squarely on the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not a program to make children conform to one sort of behavior rather than another. It is not really about the children’s outward actions as much as it is shepherding their heart to follow Jesus. Parents who live by these principles will find their own hearts being challenged as well. It is not our outward performance of a duty that makes us acceptable to God, but a heart that embraces the Savior by faith. Nothing else will save us but Christ. Our children need nothing less than the gospel as they grow and make choices in their lives.

The key to shepherding any heart is to focus, not only on the externals, but on the heart. Proverbs 4: 23 says, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for outof it spring the issues of life.” Having children who always seem to do the proper thing is not enough. We must pray for and shepherd their heart. If their heart is captured by something other than the love of Christ, they will not have the lives that we desire for them. And if we as parents (or godparents) have our hearts captured by something other than the love of Christ, then we will be unfit guides for them, and will be plagued with misery ourselves.

This is a time to invite those with children to listen and be encouraged to raise their children in a way that is centered on the gospel. And it is a time for us all to look to our own hearts to see that our hearts are centered in the gospel as well.

Pastor John

Shepherding a childShepherding a childShepherding a childShepherding a child’’’’s heart (Cont.)s heart (Cont.)s heart (Cont.)s heart (Cont.)

Drawing by Greg MacNair (Marjy Larson’s brother)

gregmacnair.com

WomenWomenWomenWomen’’’’s ministriess ministriess ministriess ministries

Westminster PresWIC Fall Meeting, “Unity Through the Truth”, will be Saturday, November 5th at Princeton Presbyterian Church in Johnson City. The speaker will be Karen Blackwell: former PresWIC president. Registration at 8:30 am; Program from 9:00 – 12:00. Contact: Becky Harr at RBHarr@yahoo.com or 423-323-4092.

November Nursery ScheduleNov 6th – Carolyn Dando & Cosette/or Tess MoormansNov 13th – Teresa Berg & Betsey WarhurstNov 20th – Sally Dawson & Teresa LawsonNov 27th – Zula Lambert & Miranda McCraw

Enter into Enter into Enter into Enter into his gates his gates his gates his gates with with with with

thanksgiving thanksgiving thanksgiving thanksgiving and into his and into his and into his and into his courts with courts with courts with courts with praise: be praise: be praise: be praise: be thankful thankful thankful thankful unto him, unto him, unto him, unto him,

and bless his and bless his and bless his and bless his name.name.name.name.

Psalm 100: 4Psalm 100: 4Psalm 100: 4Psalm 100: 4

Session update:1. Budget report

a. October Income $12,157.50b. October Expenses $16,218.22 (Includes balance owed for HVAC system)c. Budget – January - September $116,477d. Offerings – January - September $108,539e. Expenses – January - September $113,550

2. The Care Groups continue to study the following:a. Abingdon Group – The Christina Life: A Doctrinal Introduction by Sinclair

Ferguson.b. Bristol Group – Your Walk with God is a Community Project video series by Paul

David Tripp.3. The Session participated in the presbytery retreat and the quarterly Presbytery meeting for

church leaders the weekend of October 7-8 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Johnson City.

4. The Session continues to pray for the congregation and the future of Abingdon Presbyterian. Please pray for us in this as well.

Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child shoebox collections are right around the corner. National collection week is November 14 – 21, 2011. The final deadline for APC’s collection will be Sunday, November 20th.

If you are interested in working at the Operation Christmas Child warehouse in Boone with other members of our church, the date will be November 23rd from 6 – 10 pm. There are spots for ten people to participate in preparing shoeboxes for shipping.

Upcoming eventsUpcoming eventsUpcoming eventsUpcoming events

From the sessionFrom the sessionFrom the sessionFrom the session

Apc familyApc familyApc familyApc family

Randy Ojanen had percolated for forty weeks when he drew his first official breath on February 22, 1953. He was no years old at the time; neither by his fourth birthday had he received any Vision of Glory that would henceforth set the path for his life, and by his 19th year it cannot be said that he had lived a life of dissipation and riot until the moment when he was struck deaf-and-dumb for a space of two months, emerging from said experience a totally transformed young man, full of resolve and sober purpose. No, like most of us, Randy’s operating ethos for his first decade or two of life could be described simply as “Go Along to Get Along.” In high school he and his brother were altar boys, (having to wear a long white robe of medieval cut once a week

By Charlie Berg

Meet Meet Meet Meet Randy Randy Randy Randy OjanenOjanenOjanenOjanen

required considerable Going Along, one would think) and as a participant in the Boy Scouts’ God and Country Award program, he made an extensive study of the Gospel of Mark. He noted that it was “good for my mind but not my heart.” However, both his mother and grandmothers were, in their lives, witnesses to a reality and an authenticity that went beyond the realm of just A Good Set of Ideas, and Randy inwardly took notes. He was generally Dutiful; he was Responsible; he was Conscientious. He was not Flashy–but–he did slip toward Riotous Living when, in his first year at Michigan Technological University he pledged a fraternity; nevertheless, we must not hold that against him for God is Sovereign over all things, even fraternities and Randy’s ill-conceived decision to join one! For you must know, Gentle Reader, that it was precisely through this same reckless decision that God worked wondrously to greatly bless Randy four years later, and consequently bless all of us in our church community. The ripples go out and out. Read on.

Randy kept his nose to the toilsome mining engineering grindstone for four years. To have done this graduating at the top of his class, is a testament to his underlying sense of responsibility and duty. One could say it was also a testament to brains, but that’s not a character trait, more of a trait like hair color or being left-handed. Still the whole experience had to be akin to that of a rowing slave on Caligula’s party galley. Not fun. However, most grindstones do pause briefly and one such pause at Michigan Technical University was a long weekend each year known as Winter Carnival. (In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that would be a total oxymoron. Carnival for Caribou perhaps?) Now Randy Just Happened to have a fraternity pledge brother (are you paying attention here), Lloyd Abdelnour, who Just Happened to have two pretty sisters (Susan-18, and her younger sister) whom he, (Lloyd) Just Happened to invite up to the Carnival to revel and make merry in the wind, snow, sleet and ice, of course, with big brother and his fraternity pals. Oh yes, that Just Happened to be the one and only year he could have done that, what with the older sister being only 18, you see. Before too long – BINGO. As Randy explains, “She had her eyes on me the moment she walked in. I was slow to come around but then was captivated with her eyes when we started talking together.” Give us a break here Randy; you were “slow to come around” as in 150 seconds, max. A couple of days of being stuck together in the arctic waste of Winter Carnival, was evidently

Randy & Susan Ojanen in 1975 with Randy’s father

a bonding experience strong enough to found a 600 mile long-distance relationship that, after eight months of daily letters and weekly phone calls (plus two more dates of a wintry sort – naturally, since the entire school year in the Michigan U.P. is a winter event excluding one week in September and one in May) culminated in Holy Matrimony on November 1, 1975.

Soon the young couple arrived in tropical southern Ohio where Randy started working his first job as a mining engineer at an AEP coal mine. Now, God has given all of us, no exceptions, a mixedpalette of talents or gifts for the express purpose of blessing others.

One such palette is creativity in some form or another. One of the most vital of these forms is invention (or design) of things or methods or arrangements. Without this kind of creativity our lives would tend to be very short and rather nasty. Think stone age. Randy is one who has been given this particular gift, and we can all rejoice and be glad in it (see Aftword, below). It must be inserted here that, as a rule, creative people, especially innovators and inventors, tend to be the proverbial square pegs in a world of mostly round holes. They gleefully color outside the lines at every opportunity and display a ready knack for out–of–box thinking. They can be unpredictable, even contrary, and bear little resemblance to Randy Ojanen. On the surface, that is. After a couple of years in Ohio messing about with rock cutting equipment, Randy was beginning to discover his gifting. He grossly (but characteristically) understates: “During my work in coal mining, I realized that I had a talent for understanding cutting tool technology.” A tiny tip of an enormous iceberg, that statement. Give him credit;

Meet Randy Ojanen (continued)

Kennametal Trade Show

many people go much of their entire lives without recognizing their talent suitcase let alone act upon it. Randy did act upon his realization by landing a position back in Detroit with G.E. working in cutting tool design. This was 1977 and little Paul was on the way. Randy and Susan figured that Detroit was where they wanted to be, close to both of their parents (first grandchild for both sets), in familiar territory. So the job and move were perfect – well, maybe not perfectly perfect. Almost immediately, doubts about Motown being the Perfect Place to Raise a Family started to arise. “We were not as content as we had been in rural Ohio.” Regardless, and for whatever reason, they might have surmised, God was telling them “Dear hearts, I shall be moving the three of you from this place.” And within days He did indeed move Randy and family, (plus the entire G.E. engineering department) to Bristol.

Randy says they fell in love with Bristol literally before the plane’s wheels were on the ground, something about the mountains and autumn foliage, but we all know

that their falling in love with Bristol was simply how the Holy Spirit does His gentle loving thing. By the way, neither Randy nor Susan had yet come to much of a solid faith in Christ at this point, but they were where they were meant to be and that was Perfect. For the moment, that is.

Very soon after arrival, they started attending St. Anne’s in Bristol, VA, but neither of them felt satisfied; hence, they began searching for a church family that would truly meet their spiritual hunger. Before too long they were led to a non–denominational congregation in Bristol where nourishing food was being served. Randy began to nibble around the buffet’s edges, but whereas, Susan was famished, Randy was anorexic. He simply didn’t know how undernourished he was. For one thing, his work was distracting him from really chowing down. He had to be out of town far too often for a young family’s well-being, but more significantly, he was showing the early symptoms of an occupational disease that creative people are particularly susceptible to: the dreaded Pygmalion Syndrome. It is a species of idolatry in which the creating victim/patient comes to first admire, then love, and in its terminal stage, worship the very product of his creative genius. No one is immune; worse, there seems to be a direct correlation between the magnitude of the talent and the likelihood and severity of the affliction if and when it does strike. In its incipient phase, the victim presents a disinclination to give due recognition and credit for the Source of his native talent and gift set, and is oblivious (seemingly) to the Divine origin of any discrete or specific item of inspiration. Frequent recitation–out loud–of the words, “I’m good, but I ain’t that good!” are reported to have a palliative effect.

Here was Randy, then. He was inventing tools that were offering more bang for the user’s buck than anything else on the market, chief among these being an asphalt cutter used for pavement renewal. But Randy neglected to give credit to God (if only in his heart) as the source of these innovations. In parallel fashion, G.E. neglected to give proper recognition to their own golden–egg–laying goose in Bristol. Quite the ill–advised thing to do,

Meet Randy Ojanen (Continued)

since after just two years, said goose flew off to a new and better coop in Chilhowie and was duly promoted into a product management role for asphalt cutters. Meanwhile daughter, Kate, came into the family in 1981. Best of all, Randy was becoming a true trencherman in his church at the spread set before him in the adult Sunday School, and under the tutelage and mentoring of the senior pastor and particularly the young youth pastor, Nathan Bayly (Sandy Armstrong’s late husband). As a result of this abundant and nutritious diet, the Pygmalion Syndrome went into full and lasting remission.

Fractures had regrettably started to form within the church family, and by the end of the decade a large part of the congregation split off and reformed into a new church. The families Bayly and Ojanen were among them, and in 1991, Nathan Bayly was called to be their pastor. As for Randy, “The church conflict affirmed, sharpened and honed my faith” Proverbs 27: 17. Many of us can probably identify with what he experienced during periods of turmoil, even strife, in our own lives when we were forced to seize an issue by the horns and grapple it to the ground, to think fully through the vexing matter so we could answer our own hearts “is this or that truly true?”Through such conflicts we lose our tolerance for the insipid taste of ambiguity and waffles (be they ever–so–slathered in cloying sweet syrup.”

After 15 years of more spiritual growth, the Ojanens began looking once again for a different church home after Nathan Bayly’s passing. Soon enough they found APC and were drawn by the quality of the preaching and the love they felt between the members. (Amen to that Brothers!)

Recently, Susan encouraged Randy to become directly involved in GlobalHealth Outreach mission trips, specifically a trip to Nicaragua in April. Randy was hooked, that is, going to serve and give, he was served and gifted, and witnessed prayers wonderfully answered beyond what he could have imagined. He has found missions service an altogether habit–forming enterprise. Now he’s seeking a way he can use his design creativity in missions work to further advance the Kingdom of God. By the way, you do understand the Susan mentioned above is that very same wifely Susan he would have never known had he not made the rash decision to join that fraternity, don’t you?

AFTWORD“Just how are asphalt cutters a blessing to my daily life?” one might well ask. Think it through: prior to this technology to which Randy has made suchsignificant contributions, we would be living in a county and state where we had to put up with the nuisance of pot-holed pavements and the expense of getting our cars maintained and repaired from having been driven over worn out road surfaces. Or we might live in states and counties where we had the expense of higher taxes due to the enormous cost of laying new pavement at more frequent intervals, using the old methods. Instantaneous asphalt recycling changed all that. Virtually every product we buy has travelled vast accumulative distances over pavement at various stages between field or mine or factory and us. All that road travel costs money, every cent of which is passed onto all of us, the end consumers. By exercising the gifts and inventive inspiration God has imparted to him, Randy has been an agent of blessing to anyone and everyone who lives anywhere this technology is used. Any single individual might have been spared only a little expense over a single year, but multiply that little amount by decades of time and hundreds of millions of people and the aggregate benefit is huge.

Thanks, Father, and Thanks, Randy.

Gary, Kate, Randy, Susan, Brennen & Trey(daughter, son-in-law, grandchildren)

It’s A Dirty Job!

November 2011November 2011November 2011November 2011November 2011November 2011November 2011November 2011

Every Sunday:

10 am Sunday School 11 am worship 6 pm evening study

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

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Abingdon

Care Group

Communion

Prison Ministry

Abingdon

Care Group

Bristol Care

Group

30

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6

Bristol Care

Group

Dinner Day

Prison Ministry

Did you know: It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

2 3 4

Cosette

Moormans’

Birthday

Tom Larson’s

Birthday

Betsey

Warhurst’s

Birthday

Joe Armstrong’s

Birthday

Henry & Kathy

Stelzl’s

Anniversary

Francis Bayly’s

Birthday

Jason Cassell’s

Birthday

Westminster

PresWic Fall

Meeting

Amy Flowerree’s

Birthday

Jay & Elaine

Wright’s

Anniversary

Charlie & Teresa

Berg’s

Anniversary

Lydia McCraw’s

Birthday

Zac Flowerree’s

Birthday

Deadline for

Operation

Christmas

Child

Shoeboxes