Bettina Lehovec entry
New Life For Old Church
PASTOR’S FAMILY REVITALIZES AGING CONGREGATION IN
BENTONVILLE
By Bettina Lehovec
BLEHOVEC@NWAONLINE.COM
BENTONVILLE
The white frame building sits on the side of a winding dirt road, the picture of tranquility.
The heavy rains that soaked Northwest Arkansas last weekend have abated, giving way to lush green
foliage and faltering sunshine. The sounds of bird song and bees buzzing in the holly punctuate the calm.
A plain wooden sign in front of the building reads Miller Community Church. Handlettered underneath
is the service time: SUN 11:00 AM.
The rustic theme continues inside. Fifteen straight-backed pews march in two rows to the podium. A
musty smell permeates the air. A wooden desk holds a coffee maker, sugar and creamer and a stack of
Styrofoam cups. Pictures of Jesus adorn the white-washed walls.
A blackboard on the front wall hints at the church’s former life. Built in 1865, the old building has
served as a church, a school and a community center.
Methodist in its origins, the congregation has welcomed preachers from a number of different
denominations. During the past half century they’ve been predominantly Baptist, said longtime member
Ramona Crabtree. Church members use a Baptist hymnal from the 1960s and a New King James version of
the Bible.
‘The Whole Package’
At 11 a.m. last Sunday, only one couple sits inside. Pastor Fred Pearrow and his family also lead worship
at The Gardens at Osage Terrace, an assisted living facility in Bentonville. They’re sometimes a bit late to
arrive at the rural church. Several other people enter on their heels when they burst in the door at 11:05.
Only a handful of worshippers remain at Miller Community Church. They had been on the verge of
closing the doors when Pearrow began preaching in August.
“God’s always provided us a minister,” said Crabtree, unofficial custodian for the past 13 years. Her
aunt, Cleo Williams, held the position for many years previous. “We’d get to where we didn’t think we
were going to have one, then one would come.”
Pearrow and his family are breathing new life into the congregation. Once they arrive, the place bustles
with activity. Pearrow’s wife, Gwen, takes her place at the piano. Eldest son Jared, 20, heads to the pulpit
as song leader, while the other 10 Pearrow children scatter among the pews. A young girl hands out
bulletins while two older boys man the door. They’ll take the offering a short while later.
“It doesn’t look like we have much of a crowd until they show up,” said churchgoer Wayne Short. “They
scatter out and fi ll that side.”
“We got the whole package when we got them,” agreed his wife, Ruth Short. “We got the preacher, the
piano player and everybody else.”
Congregation Dwindles
Crabtree and the Shorts remember a very different kind of congregation. There was a time when the
church played a vital role in the community, full to the seams during church services, pie suppers and other
events.
“That was your whole source of social activity,” said Crabtree’s son, Larry, who was born in the
community 62 years ago. “If the doors of the church were open, we were all there from the community.
The place was absolutely packed from wall to wall.”
Community members pitched in on church upkeep, gathering on a Saturday to paint the walls, put on a
roof or erect a fence around the cemetery in back, Larry Crabtree said. He offered his comments via
telephone interview.
The cemetery is a veritable “Who’s Who” of the families that formed the community: Short, MacMillan,
Crabtree, Looney and Dillow.
Most of their descendants have moved away or passed on, Larry Crabtree said. New people have moved
into the community — there’s a Bentonville subdivision three quarters of a mile away — but they’re not
interested in a oneroom church without plumbing or children’s programs.
Church members put in central heat and air a few years ago, he said. They use a portable toilet out back
for a restroom.
The congregation has dwindled to as few as three people a number of times, Larry Crabtree said. “We’ve
accepted that it’s probably destined to end. It’s served its purpose for 150 years. A lot of people have been
saved in that church,” he said.
“I used to be one of the young ones,” commented Wayne Short, 73. “Now I’m one of the old ones. All
the others are in the cemetery out there.”
Called To Serve
A rebirth is needed for a congregation like Miller to survive, said David A. Roozen, director of the
Hartford Institute for Religion Research in Hartford, Conn. The institute conducts and publishes Faith
Communities Today, a series of ongoing reports about congregational life.
About 3 percent of churches in the U.S. have 10 members or fewer, he said. Given that there are some
300,000 congregations in the U.S., that’s about 9,000 churches.
Twenty-five percent of congregations nationwide have 50 members or fewer, he said.
Congregations like Miller face an uphill battle to adapt to the needs of a changing community, Roozen
said. He cited a common adage about church development: “It’s easier to start a new church than change an
existing one.”
Yet it’s possible. If two large families joined the congregation, it could shift the balance enough to
ensure a future, he said.
The Pearrows, with their family of 12, could be just what the church needs.
Pearrow was hired as a supply preacher, a Southern Baptist term for a preacher paid on a weekly basis
for filling the pulpit on Sunday. Members take a weekly collection to pay for his services.
Yet the pastor feels called to an expanded role. During some soul-searching at the beginning of the year,
he asked God why he hadn’t yet been placed in a full-time position. The answer he heard? “You have a
church.”
Pearrow has accepted the call with enthusiasm. He’s canvassed the surrounding neighborhoods, inviting
people to attend. A Saturday morning Bible class attracted a dedicated, if small, group of regulars. He plans
to transition that group to a Sunday school class.
The Pearrows have outfi tted the 8-foot by 5-foot foyer for use as a nursery. (Wayne Short, who attended
school in the building before rural schools were consolidated into the Bentonville School District,
remembers the foyer as the “paddling room.”)
Pearrow says about a dozen people have become semiregular visitors, with another dozen, beside his
family, as the core group.
The people attending last Sunday lauded Pearrow’s “faithfulness.” The family has earned a special place
in the old-timers’ hearts.
“They’re so refreshing,” said Thelma Costulis, who lives down the road with her husband, Jesse. Her
face lit up when the family arrived. “He loves the Lord — and you can tell that. It’s exciting.”
AT A GLANCE
MILLER COMMUNITY CHURCH
Worship: 11 a.m. Sunday Location: 12788 Punkin Hollow Road, Bentonville Information: 270-0213
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
Prayerful Vigil Opposes Abortion
40 DAYS FOR LIFE CAMPAIGN AIMS TO REACH PATIENTS,
PROVIDERS
By Bettina Lehovec
BLEHOVEC@NWAONLINE.COM
FAYETTEVILLE — No lasting effects. That was the premise held out to Debbie Magee when, at age 16,
she opted to have an abortion.
That premise was wrong, Magee told about 50 people gathered at the 40 Days For Life kick-off rally
Tuesday in Fayetteville. The rally was held on the east side of College Avenue across from the medical
offices of gynecologist William Harrison, who performs elective abortions.
“Abortion changes you — personally, physically and spiritually,” Magee said. “I walked into that clinic
(not Harrison’s) one way and left a very diff erent young lady.”
With each subsequent pregnancy, she experienced grief for the life she would never know, Magee said.
Physical problems from the abortion affected two of those pregnancies. She raised her children diff erently
than if she’d never had the abortion, fearing they would be taken from her, she later said. Guilt and remorse
kept her away from the church.
“I thought I could never be forgiven for my abortion. (Yet) God’s grace is mighty, and His love knows
no boundaries. He forgave me.” Forgiving herself was harder, Magee said. She’s done it with God’s help.
Magee knows she is not alone. As Arkansas regional coordinator for the Silent No More Awareness
Campaign, she speaks with other women who regret having abortions. Sharing their stories moves the
debate from the political realm to the real-life impact on human lives, she said.
“I share my story because I want to prevent another generation from buying into the lie that is being sold
to us that abortion is the answer. Abortion isn’t the answer. It doesn’t solve the problem. It only creates
others that may take years to surface.”
Peaceful Vigil Aims
To Change Hearts
The local 40 Days For Life campaign is part of a national eff ort started in the Bryan-College Station
area in Texas in 2004. It’s since spread to communities across the U.S. and in Canada, Australia and
Ireland. This winter and spring, there are some 165 vigils planned.
The all-volunteer campaign is not a protest or a demonstration, stressed Tiffany Dickinson, one of the
organizers of the Fayetteville event. Instead, it’s a peaceful vigil designed to touch hearts and change lives
through prayer.
“The purpose of the vigil is to pray and ask God to work on the hearts of the people involved and aff
ected by abortion — and change hearts to choose life,” she said. “We’re not there to judge. We’re not there
to point a finger. We’re there to lend a hand.
“We’re there hopefully to save a life — save a baby’s life and help a woman and a family.”
More than 100 volunteers from a number of area churches have signed up to stand vigil across from
Harrison’s office, Dickinson said. They will be there from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day through March 28.
The Fayetteville event is one of two 40 Days For Life vigils in Arkansas. The other is in Little Rock.
Campaign Claims Successes
The vigil aims to impact two groups of people — those planning or considering an abortion and those
who work in Harrison’s oft ce.
“It’s not only about the women and their parents and grandparents,” Dickinson said. “It’s also about the
doctors and nurses and staff that work there. We’re praying God will open their hearts to be open to life.”
Such a turnaround in the Bryan-College Station area, where 40 Days For Life began, has energized
antiabortion activists. Abby Johnson, the former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, quit her
job last year after watching an ultrasoundguided abortion. She’s since joined the group holding a vigil
across from the clinic.
There have been other successes, Dickinson said. Since the 40 Days For Life campaign began, fi ve
targeted clinics have closed, 26 clinic workers have quit their jobs and 2,168 women have confi rmed they
didn’t have abortions as a result of the vigils, she said.
Juliet Cassell, co-coordinator for the local campaign, and like Dickinson, a member of St. Joseph’s
Catholic Church in Fayetteville, sees speaking out against abortion as a civil rights issue.
“That is a life, a human being, that can’t rise up and speak for itself. It is just as much a human being,
with value and dignity, as everybody else.”
Abortion Provider Responds
Harrison sees things differently. He believes that human consciousness — that which some people call
the soul — does not develop until sometime after the 24th week of pregnancy, when the brain develops.
Therefore, a fetus does not have moral equivalence to the woman or girl who carries it until that point, he
wrote in a 2003 article on his Web site.
Harrison has been in practice at the Fayetteville Women’s Clinic since 1979. He estimates he’s
performed between 15,000 and 17,000 abortions, along with a full range of obstetric and gynecological
services. He stopped delivering babies in 1991 and no longer performs major surgeries.
The Fayetteville resident is the only doctor in the state outside of Little Rock to openly off er abortions,
he said. He performed more than 900 in 2009.
Harrison joined volunteers at the kick-off rally, curious to see what was going on, he later said.
“These are nice, gentle people, as a rule. They feel that if they pray, miracles will happen.” Yet there’s
an undercurrent to their actions they may not be aware of, he said.
“Unfortunately, it gives killers an excuse to kill.” He pointed to the May 31 murder of George Tiller, a
late-term abortion provider in Wichita, Kan., as an example. “What (such vigils) do is lend legitimacy to
people who do kill and murder.”
Harrison said the 40 Days For Life vigil — which was also held across from his oftce in the spring and
fall of 2008 — hasn’t aff ected his business. If anything, it serves as a form of free advertising, letting
newcomers to the community know he off ers abortions, he said.
His first experience with abortion was as a medical resident and intern at University Hospital in Little
Rock. That was in the late 1960s, when abortion was illegal. Harrison and his colleagues saw the results of
many thousands of botched abortions a year, he said. They made a lasting impression that continues to
motivate him today.
“You can’t solve a lot of problems, but you can at least solve that one,” he said. “You don’t have to give
a 13-year-old girl a hysterectomy so she can’t ever have children because of a botched abortion.”
Harrison announced Friday that his oftce is starting its own 365 Days of Prayer Campaign To Keep
Abortion Safe and Legal. He’ll put up a sign next week.
AT A GLANCE
40 DAYS FOR LIFE
Dates: Feb. 17 to March 28 Location: East side of College Avenue across from the Fayetteville Women’s
Clinic Information: www.40daysforlife. com/fayetteville, tiffany40daysjuliet@ yahoo.com.
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
Recovery For Life
CHURCH OF CHRIST MINISTRY AIDS IN LONG-TERM CHANGE
By Bettina Lehovec
BLEHOVEC@NWAONLINE.COM
BENTONVILLE
Chris Hart thought he knew what to expect when he walked into the Recovery For Life program at the
Bentonville Church of Christ.
The recovering drug and alcohol addict was used to “regular” people treating him like he had the plague,
he said. Yet he encountered something quite different.
“When I walked through that door the first time, I didn’t feel rejected,” Hart said. “What I got was total
acceptance, from that moment.”
The support he’s found in the ministry has helped Hart turn his life around. A drug user for most of his
41 years (he says he started at age 6), the Rogers resident has been clean for 21 months.
His strides are apparent to those around him. Benton County Circuit Judge Jay Finch asked Hart to speak
at the Benton County Drug Court graduation June 11.
Hart was introduced to Recovery For Life while going through a court-ordered treatment program at
Decision Point, a nonprofit alcohol and drug recovery center with campuses in Springdale and Bentonville.
The Bentonville Bates campus is next door to the Church of Christ. The church offers life skills classes
and a Sunday morning recovery class geared toward Decision Point clients. Hart said he began taking part
as a way to get off the Decision Point campus. He soon realized there was something worth returning for.
“I saw people who were happy, with smiles on their faces. They had something to live for,” he recalled.
After his six-week stay at the Bates campus ended, Hart checked himself in to the four-month recovery
program at the Holcomb Street campus in Springdale. His new friends stayed by him, giving him rides to
church, going with him to court and even paying his outstanding fines.
“The Recovery For Life program never quit on me — even when I went to jail (for not paying fines),”
Hart said. His mentors coached him in life skills, helped him deepen his faith and encouraged him to take
the steps needed to set things right in his life.
“Today, I have a network of support people I can depend on,” Hart said. He works a full-time job and
serves as president of the area’s first Oxford House, a residential facility for recovering addicts. Six men
live together in the democratically run house, setting rules and helping one another stay clean and sober.
A Network Of Support
Hart’s story is one of several successes the Recovery For Life program claims.
Outreach minister John Dyas said 10 or 11 people have turned their lives around through the ministry.
Many more have been exposed to its teaching. Contact typically begins while people are in treatment next
door and continues in the months and years after they leave.
“The challenge for them is once they get out,” said Dyas, noting some of the stresses recovering addicts
might face: no job, no driver’s license, no car, no place to live. “You can go through Decision Point and
come out clean and sober. If you don’t have support, (the chance of backsliding is much greater).”
The purpose of the program is to teach the life skills people need to build independent lives, Dyas said.
“We don’t feel that we’re specialists in recovery. That’s Decision Point’s job. Also NA and AA
(Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous). What we try to do is help people with life skills.”
About 40 to 50 people attend the Sunday morning recovery class, Dyas said. They comprise a mix of
current Decision Point clients, graduates of the program who continue to be involved, other people from the
NA and AA communities, longtime church members, and new church members drawn to the message.
Other ministry offerings include weekly life skills classes, a monthly “clean and sober” social and
individual mentoring for those committed to their recovery. It’s through the mentoring that the most
dramatic changes take place, Dyas said.
“The ones that stick with the program have a tremendous success rate,” he said, noting that it takes about
a year for people to get their lives on track.
Not all the people who get involved with Recovery For Life have such obvious successes. Some start the
mentoring program only to become derailed by the roadblocks that arise.
Figures Dyas compiled about a year ago showed seven people who had expressed interest but
disappeared as soon as they left Decision Point, five who had gone further but eventually drifted away and
nine who had successfully turned their lives around.
The thing that sets people like Hart apart is that they figure out the right thing to do — and then do it,
Dyas said.
Hart turned himself into the police station for outstanding warrants and initiated child support payments,
for example.
“Chris is pretty courageous,” the minister said. “He’s willing to face the battle and do the right thing.
When you do the right thing, things work out.”
‘A Divine Opportunity’
The Church of Christ began the Recovery For Life ministry in October 2007, 18 months after Decision
Point moved into the former Bates hospital. Tim Summers, executive director of Decision Point, said he
feared church members would protest the facility.
Instead, they turned up at the zoning hearing with a letter of support drafted by church elders, or
“shepherds,” as church members call them.
“What they’re doing with our clients is just wonderful,” Summers said. “They are making a huge diff
erence in the community. When I try to thank them for it, they thank me for giving them the opportunity. In
my opinion, it’s truly God speaking — and directing.”
Summers repeated Dyas’ statement about the importance of long-term support.
“When clients leave here, they’re equipped. If they don’t have a support system, the odds are they won’t
make it. ... It’s truly a community problem that takes a community to solve.”
Shepherds saw the treatment center as “a divine opportunity,” Dyas said. Randy Lamp, lay coordinator
of Recovery For Life, said church members had always tried to serve others.
“(Then) He put a drug and alcohol rehab center next door to us and said, ‘Now show me,’” Lamp said.
“It’s a responsibility we have — and a gift.”
The ministry has changed the people in the congregation as much as the people who come for help, both
men agreed.
“They’re a lot more sympathetic to people they probably before would have considered (guilty) of poorly
made choices,” Dyas said. “Now they see that a lot of them are actually victims themselves.”
“We had a narrow vision until we were exposed to something greater,” agreed Johnnie Ping, a 72-yearold church member who has come every Sunday since the ministry began. “This helps me grow as a
person. And it helps me help other people to grow.”
Ping sat with several other church members and a newfound friend — a woman who completed her stay
at Decision Point earlier this month.
“She’s great. She’s the reason I’m here,” Tracy Ashley said. “This is what’s been saving me — this
church and these people. (There’s a lot of) love in this room, for sure.”