Welcome Visitors!

Our co-pastors, Bruce and Carolyn Gillette, enjoy talking with people and welcome their questions about Limestone Church. Please call Bruce and Carolyn at our church office (phone: 302-994-5646) or their home (302-994-0220) or email them at bcgillette@comcast.net. Thank you.

About Limestone Presbyterian Church

Worship
We hope you will join us on Sunday morning for our 8:45 AM worship service with contemporary music and 11:00 AM worship service with traditional music. Our pastors, Bruce and Carolyn Gillette, preach sermons that relate the Bible to daily living. We celebrate the Lord's Supper the first Sunday of every month in both of our worship services and invite everyone to share in it. Our church's wonderful music is presented by the Living Water Ensemble (contemporary music group), Chancel Choir, Youth Choir and Joyful Noise Singers (children's choir).

Children: Each of our worship services also includes a special time with children to help them feel welcome and a part of the church. We have "activity bags" for children and special worship flyers for different ages. We offer nursery care for infants (with a speaker in the nursery to hear the worship service); children may attend worship with their parents or "Sunday Plus" during the later part of the worship services. We have special programs to help children understand the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

Accessible: Our church building is easily accessible for those in wheelchairs and includes recently updated bathrooms. We have large print worship bulletins for the visually impaired and those with heart conditions who have difficulty holding hymnals. We have also recently signed a contract to update our sanctuary sound system.

Beyond Sunday: Videotapes of our weekly worship services are made for homebound members and others who miss a Sunday. We have These Days and Our Daily Bread daily devotionals available in our narthex (as well as special devotional booklets for Advent and Lent). We encourage the use of the Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study, Book of Common Worship/Daily Prayer and Daily Bible Readings Email Service. Our church library has a wide range of resources for individual and family daily devotional use.

Learning
Presbyterians have always emphasized the importance of learning and our congregation has a special web page for learning opportunities. Our Church School begins at 10:00 a.m. We have classes for all ages: nursery class for infants and toddlers, children's classes, middle and high school classes and an adult discussion group. Our church has very active Youth Groups with weekly programs for Middle School and Senior High youth. Presbyterian Men have a bi-weekly Bible study and a monthly meeting or discussion, fellowship and service. Presbyterian Women have three circles (small groups) that meet at different times for monthly Bible study, fellowship and service. During special times of the year, such as Advent, we have special "Supper and Study" sessions during the week. This February our pastors will be teaching The Bible from Scratch for the New Testament, an eight-session introduction for beginners about Jesus and the early Church. An Inquirers group for people interested in learning about church membership is offered on Sunday afternoons several times a year. Every summer our church offers a popular Vacation Bible School program for the whole community. Our Confirmation Class for teens starts in September and finishes at the end of May. Every Fall our pastors teach Active Parenting Now; the Gillettes wrote the church guide to this popular video-based series for parents that is used throughout the USA. We have a fine church library with books and videotapes on a wide range of topics. We are a growing church and we try to offer many opportunities for personal growth.

Service
Our church does not exist only for worship, learning and fellowship. These activities lead us out into the world to share God's love by serving others through words and deeds. Members of our congregation do this in many different ways including through their daily living. Our Deacons have a food closet at the church that helps people on a daily basis as well as providing food baskets at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Our Church supports a variety of mission programs to share God's love with others locally, throughout the country, and around the world. Many members and children participate in the annual CROP walk in mid-October, which supports relief efforts in the United States and overseas. Carl Mazza, who worked at Limestone as a seminarian, started the Meeting Ground ministry with the homeless. Limestone member Pete Quayle serves as the Treasurer for Meeting Ground, and the Limestone congregation continues to support the ministry both financially and with volunteers. Other members are active leaders in the New Castle County chapter of Habitat for Humanity, including Jan Conley who chairs the Family Selection Committee. Our church supports the homeless ministry of Friendship House, including member Barbara Hoover who serves on its Board of Directors. Reid Conley serves on the Board of Directors for Special Olympics Delaware. Lyle and Terry Dykstra, our church's recently retired senior pastor and his wife, are now mission workers serving in Kenya.

Our pastors, our Coordinator for Pastoral Care (Ann Thomas), and other church members regularly visit those in the hospital and in nursing homes. Our Stephen Ministers are specially trained church members who provide caring for many hurting people. Our pastors are available to help people deal with a variety of problems relating to marriage, parenting, vocation, depression, alcohol, drug abuse and more. A Stewardship of Time and Talent form is available online for people to volunteer for service in the church and in the world. These are some of the many ways we try to follow Jesus' call to love our neighbors.

Fellowship
We believe the Christian life is a joyful one and we like to have fun together. Every Sunday we have a "Fellowship Time" with refreshments between our two worship services. We offer fellowship events throughout the year that include activities such as church-wide pot-luck lunches and dinners, trips to the Blue Rocks baseball games, sharing in church-wide picnics, playing volleyball, taking a group of parents and children to a children's museum, Levite Sunday (check out the online photos) and enjoying a dinner theatre evening. Our monthly church newsletter, the Chronicle, and weekly worship bulletins include details about of many activities that help build up our community and help us be an extended family for everyone. You are invited to everything the church is doing; please feel welcome to attend whatever you like.

History
Our congregation was founded in 1956. We originally met next door at the Harmony Grange. The sanctuary was build two years later and has had two building additions. We are a congregation connected to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and ecumenical in spirit. Our church membership includes many lifelong Presbyterians, but the majority of our members come from other church traditions - Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal, Baptist, Roman Catholic and others. Members live throughout Delaware and nearby Pennsylvania. More information about the history of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is available from the Presbyterian Historical Society. More information about the history of our congregation can be found on the History page.

Leadership
The word "Presbyterian" comes from the biblical Greek word for "elder". Our congregation has a representative system of government of fifteen elected elders. Our Board of Deacons has eighteen elected members who coordinate our caring ministries. The names of our current church officers is on the Church Leaders web page. Pastors Bruce and Carolyn Gillette began serving with the Limestone Church in August 2004. Our pastors enjoy talking with people and welcome questions about the church. If our church and pastors can be of help in any way to you or if you have any questions, please call Bruce and Carolyn Gillette at the church office (302-994-5646) or at home (302-994-0220), or email them at bcgillette@comcast.net.

Annual Report, January 2010

Limestone Presbyterian Church 3201 Limestone Road, Wilmington, DE 19808-2198

Limestone Presbyterian Church
3201 Limestone Road, Wilmington, DE 19808-2198