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Limestone
Presbyterian Church |
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Our pastors, Bruce and Carolyn Gillette, enjoy talking with people. Please call Bruce and Carolyn at our church office (302-994-5646) or their home (302-994-0220) or email them at bcgillette@comcast.net. Thank you. On June 13, 2004, the congregation of the Limestone Presbyterian Church voted unanimously to call the Reverends Bruce and Carolyn Gillette to be the church's co-pastors. The Gillettes began working at the church in August, 2004. The Gillettes, who had served together in Pitman, NJ for the past ten years, explained why they accepted the new call to Delaware: "The Limestone church is a wonderful congregation. They offer joyful, creative worship - both contemporary and traditional services - with a strong music program with four choirs: Chancel Choir, "Living Water" contemporary ensemble, Youth Choir and the "Joyful Noise Singers" children's choir. Their educational programs are outstanding, with a strong Church School on Sunday mornings. They recently hired a Director of Youth Ministry for the growing youth groups. The church has many learning opportunities for adults. It is also a very caring congregation with trained "Stephen Ministers" as well as a coordinator of pastoral care on its staff. The congregation has a proud history of support for service and missions. Lay leader Jan Conley is a leader with Habitat for Humanity in the New Castle Counter chapter. Carl Mazza, who worked at Limestone as a seminarian, started the Meeting Ground ministry with the homeless which Limestone continues to support with volunteers like Limestone member Pete Quayle. Lyle Dykstra, the church's recently retired senior pastor, is now a mission volunteer teaching in a Presbyterian college in Kenya." Bruce and Carolyn bring a variety of gifts to the ministry, including expertise in family ministry, peacemaking, ecumenism and hymn writing. They have been commissioned by the national Family Ministry office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to write the worship and educational resource for the denomination's Christian Family Week in 2005 which will be mailed to 11,000 congregations throughout the USA. Bruce and Carolyn wrote the study and action guide for the 216th General Assembly (2004) report on Transforming Families. They have been keynote speakers for regional meetings on family ministry. Last year, Bruce and Carolyn wrote Active Parenting Now for the Faith Community: A Biblical and Theological Guide, a revision of Freda Gardner's original church guide to the very popular Active Parenting. Active Parenting is a popular video-based parenting skills course that has been featured on PBS-TV, CNN-TV and The Oprah Winfrey Show. The Gillettes are the parents of three children: John, Catherine and Sarah. The Gillettes will be the speakers at the Family Conference at Massanetta Springs on October 14-16, 2006. http://www.massanettasprings.org/family_conference.html. Bruce Gillette was the moderator of the 68-member Assembly Committee on Peacemaking for the 2004 General Assembly meeting. This committee made reports to the national governing body of the Presbyterian Church (USA) concerning Iraq, terrorism, the Middle East and Columbia. On behalf of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Bruce Gillette addressed a special meeting of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland on March 9, 2005. The Gillettes wrote the worship resource for World Communion Sunday in 2002 that was mailed by the Peacemaking Program to all of the PCUSA congregations in the USA. Previously, Bruce was the denominational representative on the Executive Committee for the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) that created Churches Uniting in Christ (CUIC), an ecumenical organization seeking to build closer ties among nine major Protestant denominations (including Methodists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians). Bruce is the co-author of A New Creation In Christ: A Study Guide for Churches Uniting in Christ. Gifts of Love: New Hymns for Today's Worship (Geneva Press, 2000) is a collection of hymns by Carolyn Gillette. Her hymns are also in the new supplements for the Episcopal and Presbyterian hymnals. They have been sung by congregations in every state of the USA and several other countries as well as being on national PBS-TV three times and the BBC-TV in the United Kingdom. Noel Paul Stookey of "Peter, Paul and Mary" made a music video with Emmy winner Pete Staman of Carolyn's hymn written on September 11th, 2001. Her hymns can be found on the national websites of the American Baptist Churches, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Reformed Church in America, United Methodist Church, and Church World Service. After coming to Limestone, Carolyn wrote a hymn-prayer ("In Times of Great Decision") for before Election Day that was sung by thousands of churches and was featured in a NCC national news story, the ecumenical The Christian Century magazine, and The News Journal, the state-wide newspaper in Delaware.
Here is a scanned copy of an article about Pastor Carolyn's hymns
that was in the Wilmington News Journal (Saturday, August 8). |
