What is Saint Luke's? A thousand things to its many members. For thirty-seven years, to our family, the overriding thing is "home." By this I mean an entity that encompasses far more than the church building. Our "way home" started in 1972 when we moved to Birmingham from Atlanta with an eight-month-old little girl. We bought the home we still live in on Canterbury Road, and we visited Episcopal churches. We were drawn to the friendly, enthusiastic parishioners at Saint Luke's. It didn't take long after joining to find ourselves caught up in the busy "family life" of our new church home.
Over the years some “Kodak moments” have been baby son's baptism, Sunday school, acolytes, ECW, Vacation Bible School crafts, choir, burning the first mortgage, Camp McDowell, car washes, confirmations, intercessory prayer group, candlelight Christmas Eves, Altar Guild, Vestry, Lay Eucharist Minister, Bible study, Happenings, rebuilding the parish building and renovating the nave and chancel, church offices in double-wide trailers on the front parking lot, church suppers and picnics, talks by John Stott, Phillip Yancey and others, Jennifer and Trippe's wedding, and their children's baptisms. There have been high events that glorified God and low points that grieved His heart and ours.
But through it all we've been learning Jesus better, loving Him, and serving Him in and through all the people who over the years have made up our family, His Body -Saint Luke's.
In a sermon Russell Levenson once preached on a Christ-centered life, he described its success only when we remember "The main thing is to keep the Main Thing the main thing." At the time I thought of some life circumstances that find resolution in the Main Thing (Christ).
Through the years we have found Saint Luke's a loving Christ-centered home where the door is always open. May God continue to use us to build up His Body.
Jene and husband Bill are the parents of Jennifer (Trippe Gray) and Graham (Allie). They have four beautiful grandchildren: Davis and Caroline Gray and Wills and Mary Hollins Black.
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