Tinney Chapel Today

Service with a smile from a community that cares!

“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” –Hebrews 13:16

It was a day when everything, and nearly everyone, worked!

The first Annual Winnsboro Community Service Day (WCSD), June 23, attracted 90 eager volunteers to a 6:00 a.m. breakfast in Wesley Hall at First United Methodist Church (FUMC), where this idea had blossomed, months earlier, in the fertile imagination of FUMC’s Pastor, Rev. Allen Snider.

FUMC Men cooked breakfast for the volunteers, serving them pancakes, patty sausage, fruit, juice and hot coffee, then cleaned up in time for lunch, which was donated by several local businesses, including Pizza Inn, Subway, Bodacious Barbecue, The Outpost and Brookshire’s Grocery.

Rev. Snider says this idea was patterned after the Great Days of Service program in Sherman, where he previously served as Pastor. But after more than two years here, Rev. Snider believes Winnsboro has a heart for community service like no other place he has ever lived! What’s more, he says this kind of service is a part of what we are all called to do as members of churches and civic organizations.

One of Rev. Snider’s leaflets carried this suggestion for potential WCSD volunteers: “Tune up your scraper, paint brush, work shoes, visiting shoes, apron, hammer, saw, pots and pans, lawn mower, weed-eater, edger or whatever tools you will need.”

Among the Day’s volunteers: Winnsboro Mayor Carolyn Jones,
Winnsboro City Manager Ronny Knight and Winnsboro City Councilman Pat Patrick, all of whom also worship at Winnsboro FUMC.

Mayor Jones called herself the WCSD water girl, as she transported bottled water, donated by the nearby Ozarka plant, to all WCSD project sites.

A host of volunteers from other area churches,
businesses and civic organizations, including such local celebrities as Winnsboro Superintendent of Schools Mark Bosold, painted, weeded, mowed, pruned, hammered, nailed, power-washed, ramped, cooked, served, picked up trash and were constantly on top of anything that needed doing on this very special Day.

Lives were enriched and joy overflowed as work finally got underway on WCSD projects, all of which had materialized during a series of Planning Team and Project Coordinator meetings that began in late February.

The projects included work at a local Women’s Drug Rehabilitation Center, the Northeast Texas Child Advocacy Center and several private homes.

In addition, four crews conducted a four-quadrant city sweep, using trucks and trailers to pick up and dispose of anything that was left outside for the pre-arranged pickup.

Rev. Snider, brought his own tools to help with pre-paint scraping at the home of Ms. Johnnie Rhoten, whose niece, Ms. Mickey Stewart, is a member of FUMC. Among others helping out on that project were Superintendent Bosold, Greg Duffey, one of the pastors at Winnsboro’s Hynson Chapel CME and Brenda Carroll, shown in the lead photo above, an employee of Peoples Telephone Company.

Afterwards, Ms. Rhoten had this to say: “Words are not enough to say a mere ‘thank you’ for all you’ve done for me. What a blessing! God Bless!”

Rev. Snider offered an overall summary for the Day: “We built two wheelchair ramps. Two houses got painted. Trash was picked up all over town. Morgan’s Mercy Mansion, the Women’s drug rehab center, got a ceiling in the washroom, the gutters got cleaned, and some trash got hauled away. Important repairs were done to two houses. Some plumbing got fixed. Dead and dangerous trees were cut down, brush was cleared out, lawns were leaned up, landscaping was done. And prayers made a difference.”

In addition to the sweat equity projects, WCSD also sponsored a community-wide food drive to restock local food pantries.

“Grants and donations from Winnsboro Presbyterian Hospital, Keller’s Creamery, local churches and individuals funded the projects and covered our expenses, which included, among other things, a special umbrella insurance policy for the Day,” explains Rev. Snider. “More than 20 local churches, agencies and organizations were represented.

“We were a part of something wonderfully right on this Day,” adds Rev. Snider. “I thank God I was there. I thank God that Methodists, Baptists, Christians, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, churches, government agencies and institutions did not matter so much as people working together to do the good we were able to do in the community.

“The Ministerial Alliance of Winnsboro, the Mayor, the City Administrator and representatives of the Chamber of Commerce all supported this effort,” he emphasized.

Best of all, Rev. Snider expects a re-run of the event next year, and the next, and the next, for at least as long as he remains in Winnsboro: “We hope that it grows into a multiple day event, similar to the one in Sherman.”

“Of course there is much more that needs doing in the Winnsboro area, concedes Rev. Snider. “But we hope this has raised awareness, and it’s just a beginning.

“We started small our first time out,” he concludes. “But, by working together to help each other, we made Winnsboro a little better for all of us because we made living better for some of us.”

# posted by Joe Dan Boyd @ 6/23/2007

A Cowboy Poetry Ministry At Tinney Chapel

Although Tinney Chapel UMC is not a “cowboy church,” many of its attendees talk the talk, walk the walk and are steeped in cowboy culture. Tinney Chapel pastor, Rev. Duncan Graham, usually serves Holy Communion while wearing cowboy boots under his elder’s vestment.

But no one is more authentically cowboy than was the late Jim Asbill, a memorable Tinney Chapel member who raised quarter horses and helped inaugurate the church’s first Cowboy Poetry Gathering in 2002. Jim read cowboy poetry and decorated the event’s stage with his own prized antique saddle.

After Jim was killed in a tragic horseback riding accident in 2003, the event was re-named in his honor, and he is still considered present in spirit. His antique saddle has remained onstage every year since.

Readers and singers at Tinney Chapel’s recent Sixth Annual Jim Asbill Cowboy Poetry Gathering, June 2, 2007, include:

Odena Glover Brannam, at 97, this event’s oldest poet and biggest hit for the past several years,

Danny Lake, a working rancher and the event’s perennial MC,

Angela Wylie, Winnsboro High School (WHS) teacher and one of Tinney Chapel's three certified lay speakers,

Larry Mitchell, a perennial Wood County entrant and, for the past two years, pastor of Rimrock Cowboy Church,

Dianna Mitchell, Larry’s wife,

Sarah Doke, a young mother of four and one of Tinney Chapel’s newest members, who read a traditional cowboy poem titled The Zebra Dun,

Larry Shepherd, who attends Mitchell’s Rimrock Cowboy Church, kept the audience in stitches with his description of a cowboy riding the coin-operated horse outside a department store,

Dennis Roberts, a yodeling cowboy singer whose signature performance is an old musical standard, Cattle Call,

Bob Deitering, chair of this event’s sponsoring agency, Tinney Chapel Men’s Ministries, and

Joe Dan Boyd, Tinney Chapel communications coordinator.

From the get-go, the goal of this interactive Tinney Chapel ministry event has been to encourage art that mirrors life.

Poetry topics don’t have to be overtly cowboy, on the assumption that many of today’s cowboys are, for the most part, ordinary human beings who adhere to a certain code of conduct.

Brannam, whose readings move effortlessly between profoundly inspirational, unapologetically spiritual or outrageously funny, draws from a vast, eclectic body of work.

One new poem, I Feel Like Talking, was finished just in time for Brannam to read at this event:

“Wait a minute, God...

I want to talk...

There are things I need to say.

The world is too busy to listen.

It goes hurry, hurry: All the time.

I am a little person, God,

Very unimportant...

No one has to listen to me

So no one does.

Are you listening, God?

Is anyone on your staff listening?

Somebody, somewhere, sometime should stop

And hear me!

Wait, God, please: I have something to say!”

Danny Lake, whose ranch is just down the road from Tinney Chapel’s Family Life Center, is another prolific composer, who also occasionally reads the work of other poets.

In addition to serving again as master of ceremony for this year’s passel of poets, Lake read Copenhagen Kisses, which details the inconvenience associated with trying to kiss his wife Pat while also nursing a wad of snuff between cheek and gum.

On a more serious note, Lake read Daddy’s Belt, an elegy to the inevitability of punishment for childish misdeeds by a father who termed it love when he “tanned the hide” of an errant son.

Larry Mitchell, called to ministry since the 2005 event, now pastors Rimrock Cowboy Church at nearby Pine Mills. One of his readings this year, Saddle Pards, is a description of his increasingly intense walk with the Lord.

Another, What Is A Cowboy Church, shed light on Mitchell’s brand of ministry at Rimrock.

Another Mitchell reading lifted profuse praise to Dianna, his wife and partner in ministry, while yet another spoofed the entire cowboy poetry concept by pretending that he had misunderstood the event as an invitation to a cowboy poultry gathering:

“Just imagine some old cowpoke

Jabbing his spurs into his steed.

Chasing chickens through the sagebrush,

With Colonel Sanders in the lead.”

Dianna Mitchell, Larry’s wife, made her debut last year when she read Standing In The Gap, and was back this year with added confidence and increased inspiration. Dianna’s two new poems recalled her girlhood goals and described her recent participation in a western heritage event at Abilene.

Tinney Chapel’s own Bob Deitering usually helps cook the event’s meal before walking onstage, and then only after donning the duds and dash of a rodeo clown. His readings have included a variety of subjects, including this year’s “serious humor” about a cowboy’s disappointment with someone’s behavior at a certain church, and his relief upon learning, via personal revelation, that God could not recall ever having been in that particular church.

Joe Dan Boyd is another perennial entrant who also plays guitar and sings traditional cowboy songs: Cool Water in 2006, which he later reprised to dramatize a lay speaker sermon on Living Water, and a Tex Ritter medley this year which included excerpts from Blood On The Saddle, Cowboy’s Dream and Rounded Up In Glory.

Angela Wylie read three new poems, including Roses On The Table, dedicated to the everyday thoughtfulness of her husband David.

Her previous entries helped her decide to enter, and eventually win, first place in a WHS faculty poetry contest earlier this year.

Angela shared her winning WHS poem, Life, which concludes with this amazing finale:

“These thoughts are in my mind as I reach out

And take into my arms

Life

Precious

A warm, slightly sticky child

Clinging trustingly, astraddle my hip

Sweat-dampened curls of fine hair against my shoulder

I carry her up the steps

She is pleasantly heavy

Solid and full of life

She is the future waiting

The seed of dreams yet undreamed

The hatchling with new songs to sing

New skies to climb

The sweaty, strong assurance of joys and sorrows to be encountered

Life to be embraced

A little bit of me

A little bit of her mom and dad

A big-eyed mix and whirl of all those who have gone before

In one curious, busy, demanding bundle

My grandchild

A piece of my life

The future in my arms.”

# posted by Joe Dan Boyd @ 6/02/2007