As you come to him, the living Stone - rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him - you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
- 1 Peter 2:4-5

Building a Church Family

by Jean Stuart

You might say Central Church and the Stuarts grew up together. As part of the group that began worshipping God in that little brown Manse in 1949, it is personally exciting to see what God has done in just 50 years.

Such memories we have! We remember sitting under Sunday School teachers like Ed Britton, Ralph Rios and Murray and Dottie Smoot who opened the Word of God to two hungry babes in Christ. We remember working in Vacation Bible School and being more rapt at the flannel graph Bible stories that Edna Zuraw from Child Evangelism taught than any of our young pupils. We remember seeing the Gospel in action in the everyday lives of so many dear believers, like the Dances, the McLeans, the Hesses, the Wolfs, the Lovells, the Lanes and so many more. I worked as secretary to Murray, trying to decipher his handwriting, and yet taking in more than just dictation as I was woven into the Smoot family's daily living for Christ. One thing that has never changed at Central in all these years is the great feeling of being needed and seeing your small part become part of the larger whole!

The early Central congregation took us in as part of their social life. We ate together in each other's homes, played bridge together, roller skated as families, swam together at Sunday School picnics on the Maryland Shore, square danced, and celebrated marriages and births, while the major bond was our new life in Jesus Christ. As is still true today, heartache and tragedy that occurred in that early Central church was met as a family, ministering with counsel, cooking meals, and providing child care. To two young people starting out in our Christian life, Central's witness was like the early Christian church, not just talking the talk, but walking the walk.

We learned much by being available as Senior High leaders. We found it didn't work to try to take the place of mothers and dads, and it was worse to try to come on as buddies. There was tough love, but there was God's love, and our joy of seeing the Holy Spirit breathe new life into dear young lives. We worked shoulder to shoulder with great role models like the Helds, the Staffas (who ran the Junior High Fellowship, did an amazing job and are still in touch with some of the kids) and the Smoots. It still amazes us at what we accomplished. Bruce drove a busload of Senior Highs to Ocean City and back in a day, leaving at 5a and returning at 12 midnight, after roughhousing in the surf all day. We stayed up all night with the gang, and cooked breakfast early New Year's Day. We herded 60+ teenagers to and from Arlington Echo Camp for the weekend, where we water skied (Bruce, that is, definitely not Jean), had shaving cream battles, cooked three meals a day, shared Christ around the campfire (some for the first time), and enjoyed all the exuberance of being young and being His! We celebrated Senior High graduation with fantastic banquets at Central, and went on hay rides and overnight ski trips. In all of this, with hearts growing as fast as they were, our Senior Highs ministered unselfishly at Thanksgiving and Christmas with toys and food and the Gospel message.

Grateful to God for 50 years as Central members? You betcha! The core values were there then; prayer, Biblical preaching and teaching, witness, and evangelism, Youth work and Sunday school, thoughtful and challenging worship, fellowship, and above all else, everything done under the saving name of Jesus Christ. Under the leadership of Murray and Dottie Smoot and a caring congregation, these were the rocks of the Stuart's early faith that held us fast in times of joy and sorrow.

Grateful to God for the Jubilee Year and excited about the 50 years to come? You betcha!

Now, many of the names that witness to us and comfort us have changed, and Ron & Anne Scates carry on as examples to us, upholding the core values with biblical preaching and teaching, but more than ever in 1999, the Stuarts, Bruce, Jean and Jeff, applaud our Central roots and celebrate our wings!

Hope is the constant expectation of
good from the hand of God.
- J.Murray Smoot, Pastor

Ministries

Helping Up Mission - an inner city ministry for the needy, now in its 114th year, "Where it's Christmas every day". Central member Ed Scoggins was Director from 1946-57 and Chuck Serio is still involved today.

Young Life - Murray Smoot brought this new organization to Baltimore. The first meetings were in Helen Hess' home.

Women's Missionary Society - First met in October 1949 with six ladies; one was Miss Annie Likes who attended the last meeting in the downtown church. They supported Central's first missionary, Olive Silver in Nigeria. Today they are the Presbyterian Women, going strong with over 110 women in six Circles.

Ladies Bible Class - Began in 1955 and still being taught by Pastor Smoot, with an interlude of 1983-93 when it was taught by retired missionaries Emerson & Grace Frey.

Day Camp - Now known as Very Exciting Bible School, is a summer program for children. Often as many as 75% of the children were not from Central. At one time it included an outreach to special needs children. In 1975 there were 225 children and a staff of 60.

Central Exchange - Central's newsletter. By the early 1960's the name was changed to the Centinel at Julia Lane's suggestion. Originally done by mimeograph machine, it is now done on a computer with art obtained over the Internet!

Bruce Stuart used to shoot clay pigeons on Sundays and kept refusing the McLean's invitations to come to church. Jean would come home and rave about the handsome, young preacher. Then Bruce had a car accident. He was thrown from the car which was about to roll over and crush him. Bruce felt the hand of the Lord push the car back onto the road. It was so obviously God that he began coming to church. Shearman Dance and other men asked him to help with various activities, such as digging out the basement of the old brown manse, in order to make Sunday School rooms. One night Murray led him to the Lord on their way home from dinner.

Humble Arlene Cook made memorable decorations for the women's association and other groups throughout the 1950s and 60s. As she remembers it, "Almost anything was an improvement on Fellowship Hall in those days. There was not pretty panelling, etc. So whatever we did was an improvement, and if there was more time, a little more could be improved!" Three cheers for her cheerful attitude!

Donald Gray Barnhouse, a famous evangelist and Bible expositor, came to preach at Central just after the first sanctuary (gym) was finished in 1954. The Sanctuary was packed with people, with some standing in the back, some sitting in the aisles, and some literally hanging out of windows in order to hear him. A year later we were happily forced into two morning services.