THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 7, 1996 TAG: 9604050148
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Did you know you can read the entire Bible aloud in 80 hours?
If you don't believe it, check the records at Liberty New Testament Church in West Norfolk.
Taking 30-minute shifts, members of the congregation and their friends read every word in seven days - 12 hours a day except for last Sunday, when they read eight hours.
At 7 a.m. Saturday, March 30, Jon Powers started with ``In the beginning God created the heavens and earth . . . ''
Shortly before 7 p.m. on Good Friday, Mike Haskell read ``The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.''
When I stopped by the church on Jackson Street last Wednesday evening, Frank Messina was in the pulpit. The locksmith had just started the New Testament, reading from Matthew. He was alone in the small sanctuary, but he was not mumbling to himself. He was speaking every word.
``The real reason I liked reading this was that I was reading the words of Jesus,'' he said.
The marathon reading, called ``Festival of Words,'' was planned to ``emphasize the priority of the Scripture in our public worship and spirituality,'' Pastor Joel Palser said.
Palser came to Hampton Roads to serve as chaplain for Regent University. He became pastor of Liberty two years ago.
``I'm nervous about invented religion,'' he said. ``I say let the Bible speak for itself. The Bible says even a fool can find the way.''
Reading the Bible in 80 hours is not simply an exercise, the Rev. Peter Schoew told me. Schoew, rector of the revitalized Grace Episcopal Church in Newport News, spoke at Liberty on Wednesday night.
``I think something is going on inside the people who are reading,'' he said. ``They may not know it now, but it's there.''
Participation in the reading has been inclusive. From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. March 30, all the readers were men of the congregation. From 1 to 9 p.m. on Palm Sunday, the readers were young people - 12-year-old Jessica Ferrell was the youngest.
Palser said he was pleased with the response and with the positive feelings generated by the reading.
Liberty Church in housed in a charming building on Jackson Street, including a sanctuary that dates to 1892, when Fifth Avenue Methodist Church was organized as a mission of Centenary Methodist Church. From 1914 to 1952, the same pastor served both churches.
Fifth Avenue began growing during World War I. By 1922, during the pastorate of the Rev. Porter Hardy (father of the man who served as a congressman), more space was needed, and the Sunday school building was added.
The small sanctuary built in 1892 is simple, but its stained-glass windows, all of them given many years ago to honor members of the Fifth Avenue church, are magnificent.
The building was vacant and being used for storage by a nearby business when the Liberty congregation bought it about six years ago, Palser said.
Attendance at Sunday services has been averaging about 125 people, he said, so he has started having two services, at 9 and 11 a.m., to ease the crowded pews.
He really is not interested in building more buildings, Palser said.
``The church is about people, not buildings. I'm not pitching or selling anything.''
At Liberty they don't even pass an offering plate and pray over money at Sunday services. Instead, members put their money into a box in the vestibule.
``It's an old way of doing it,'' Palser said, ``and it works.''
Liberty is an interesting mix of old and new. The light through the old stained-glass windows takes you back a hundred years, when music was staid and the preacher read from the King James Version of the Bible.
But during services, the old sanctuary comes alive with music from a combo. The pastor just bought a guitar to perform at church functions. And the readers were using a a modern translation of the Bible, the New International Version. by CNB