Page B4-The Chronicle, Thursday, April 26, 1984
Focus On Religion
The Lord has b
By AUDREY L. WILLIAMS
Chronicle Staff Writer
There's one house on Kentucky Avenue that looks as if
it comes right out of the storybook pages.
The immaculately kept lawn resembles wall-to-wall
carpeting. The flower bed of tulips and the two azalea
trees are the Rev. Mamie Rennick's pride and joy.
Like her lawn and her neatly kept home, Rennick likes
to boast about her congregation at lshi Penecostal
Holiness Church on Excelsior Street where she's been
pastor for eight years.
Her husband, the late Rev. R.S. Rennick, led the
church for 27 years, and for two years she served as his
assistant pastor.
"I kept my calling for a whole year before 1 told my
husband," Rennick says, and then bursts into laughter
when she remembers the day she told him she wanted to
become a minister.
"My nickname to him was May," she says, "and he
looked at me and said, 'May, I'm not going to have you
running all over the United States of America.'"
But she won her way and after his death eight years
ago, she became the leader of the 100-member church.
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"The Holiness Church is used to a woman leading
them," Rennick says. "1 know there are a lot of people
who don't prefer lady ministers, but as long as I'm doing
God's work it doesn't affect me.
"I think I get the message across," she says. "They're
(the congregation) obedient and they take care of me."
Because Rennick can rarely be caught at home, the
members of her church recently presented her with an
answering machine to answer her many calls when she's
away.
She likes spending time with children and entertaining
in her dining room with her home-cooked food.
? "Move people," she says, "and 1 like making them
s
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Relij
Church Calendar, Focus On Re
>een good to her
happy. One of my other hobbies is sending flowers and
cards to the sick. That's why I have a charge account with
the florist."
:?Rennick is also careful about her appearance and
opens her hall closet to prove it.
"We can go to an extreme with anything," she says,
"but just because I've received the Holy Ghost doesn't
mean I'm supposed to let myself go.
"1 go all out to let people know that it's all right to
keep themselves up," says Rennick. "Jesus put these
things here for us to look nice and he's expecting us to
look nice."
Lined along the wall in the living room are pictures,
mostly of children. Rennick,-who has one daughter,
points each one out and tells his or her relationship to
*7 know there are a tot of people who don't
prefer lady ministers, but as long as I'm doing
God's work it doesn't affect me. "
- the Rev. Mamie Rennick
her. "She's sweet. That's my church secretary," she says.
"And this one, I raised her. I would love to raise that
baby of hers."
For most of her life, the Pittsburgh, Pa., native, reared
mostly in and around Durham, was a nurse maid. But until
her husband died, she had never shopped for groceries
and had to ask for directions to the phone and utility
companies to pay her bills.
"Like the Bible says, my husband protected and took
i care of me," says Rennick.
In the middle of the interview, she eases up from her
seat and starts playing and singing on the piano,
i "I play 'til I feel the spirit," she says. "I'm no professional,
but if 1 feeLthe sprit I'll start playing and I get
louder."
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Lfllle May ButleT
Butler to preach Sunday
Mrs. Lillie Mae Butler will preach her trial sermon at
Wayside C.M.E. Church Sunday, April 29, at 5 p.m. She
is a native of Winston-Salem and a charter member of
Wayside.
^^DTfTTf^^g^auateor Paisley High School, is enrolled
at Hood Theological Seminary in Salisbury. She serves as
the recording steward at Wayside and is superintendent
of the Sunday School. She is well-known throughout the
Winston-Salem/Greenville district of the Carolina Conference.
Wayside is located at 3780 Carver Road. The Rev. Emma
T. Duren is the pastor.
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Dr. Braxton Cooley
Pastor candidate to speak
Dr. Braxton Cooley's II a.m. worship service will conclude
the first series of hearing candidates for the pulpit
vacancy at First Baptist Church at 700 North Highland
Avenue.
Cooley is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Harrisburg,
Pa. He is a native of Raleigh and received his
doctor of ministry degree in theology and psychology
from Drew University in Madison, N.J.
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The Rev. Mamie Rennick on the criticism of womei
it doesn't affect me" (photo by James Parker).
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It's not uncommon to hear her call out to the Lord and
thank Him because "He's been good to me," she says.
Not only is Rennick active in organizing church activities'in
the community and in her church's conference,
she is president of th? Missionary Department of North
and South Carolina, serves as supervisor of the Carolinas
Home Mission Society and sings in the Missionary Choir
of the State Council.
?She looks out the window and notices a drizzle coming
Church Notes
Missionary Society meets
The Local Missionary Society of New Faith Chapel
Holiness Church will convene April 25-29. Speakers will
be featured each night during the services, which will
begin at 7:30 p.m.
Un Sunday, the services will begin at 3 p.m.
Speakers for the week will include Elder Darryl McConnell,
Ruling Elder Ronald L. Brown, vice president
of the National Missionary Society; Evangelist Barbarau
Jenkins and Minister Syretha Robinson, president of the
National Missionary Society.
Ms. Thelma Grant is the local president, and Bishop
Lawrence S. Tate is the host pastor.
The church is located at 1419 Waughtown St.
Special day observed
WINSTON-SALEM -- May Fellowship Day is special
celebration sponsored and observed across the country byChurch
Women United on the first, Friday in May.
Prepared by a group of Spanish-speaking women in
Church Women United, the May Fellowship Day service
for 1984 reflects the culture from which they come.
Using the theme "The Family, A Portrait of Change,"
the celebration focuses on the family.
May Fellowship Day activities scheduled in WinstonSalem
will be held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church at
Broad and Summit streets. On Friday at 10:30 a.m. until
noon, a Bible study will be held, followed by "The Family,
A Portrait .of Change: A Message From Hispanic
Women." A luncheon will follow the service. The cost
per person is $3.
Reservations can be made by calling Peggy Bowman at
725-5904 or Marian Butler at 722-6478 by April 28.
in J PqY Rllflpr annivprsary
tlci* past or of.
Shiloh Baptist Church, will be held Saturday, April 28,
from 4-6 p.m.
Butler is a native of Sampson County, a graduate of
Charles E. Perry High School in Roseboro. He earned
both his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from
Shaw University and Shaw Divinity School in Raleigh.
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Bishop Paul A. Bowers
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down. Her almost permanent smile turns downward
when she realizes she's just washed her ear. The smile
comes back when she thinks about where it came from.
Patting her hair back in place and smoothing over her
skirt, Rennick says, "I like things in order. That's my
joy.
"My whole life is centered around Jesus and He wants
us to look nice, neat and clean. How can 1 tell you about
Jesus when I'm not presentable?"
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Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., a native of Oxford, will be
the special guest speaker for the missionaries at the 11
a.m. worship service at Emmanuel Baptist Church on
Sunday, April 29.
Chavis is an ordained minister of the United Church of
Christ and earned his bachelor's of arts degree in
chemistry from the University of North Carolina, master
of divinity degree from the Divinity School of Duke
University, doctor of ministry degree from Howard
University Divinity School, and is a candidate for the
doctor of philosophy degree at Union Theological
Seminary in New York City. He is currently deputy director
for the?United Chupch of-Chrtst Commission for
Racial Justice and is active in the Rev . Jesse Jackson's
A former school teacher, Chavis worked with the late
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement
and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He
has received numerous public, national and international
awards.
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^na\i?> is aiso an auinor ana wrote volumes ot poetry
while imprisoned for four and a half years as one of the
Wilmington Ten, nine black men and a white woman accused
and convicted of bombing a store in Wilmington in
the 1970s.
Emmanuel is located at 1075 Shalimar Drive. The Rev.
John Mendez is the pastor.
Bishop Bowers will be
guest speaker Saturday
Bishop Paul A. Bowers of Cincinatti, Ohio, will be the
guest speaker at a service at Ishi Pentecostal Temple on
Saturday, April 28.
Bowers is the diocesan bishop of the Carolina State
Council of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World Inc.
As such, he is in the Carolinas every four months to
preside over council meetings and periodically visits the
48 churches which make up the council.
Bowers will also conduct a closed pastor's seminar
April 28 and a public worship service will be held the
same day at 7:30 p.m.
The Rev. Mrs. Mamie C. Rennick is the host pastor.
The church is located at 1319 Excelsior St.