Top East Cobb stories for 2019: Johnson Ferry Baptist’s new pastor

Rev. Clay Smith

The year 2019 marked some dramatic change for several East Cobb faith communities, including one of its best known. Johnson Ferry Baptist Church has a new pastor, only the second its history.

Rev. Clay Smith was called from First Baptist Church in Matthews, N.C., to succeed founding pastor Rev. Bryant Wright.

Wright, who initially ministered to a tiny congregation in vacant office space in the early 1980s, shepherded the church into one with more than 8,000 members, with a sprawling campus on Johnson Ferry Road that now includes a large activities center, ball fields and a K-12 school.

In addition, Wright began the non-denominational Wright From the Heart Ministries, reaching radio and multimedia audiences, and was president of the Southern Baptist Convention as it welcomed historically black congregations.

At the end of 2018 Wright indicated his desire to step away from his Johnson Ferry duties, and will continue with Wright From the Heart.

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Another long-time spiritual leader in East Cobb announced this year he will be retiring in 2020. Steven Lebow of Temple Kol Emeth became the Reform synagogue’s first full-time rabbi in 1986 and took part in community protests against an anti-gay resolution by the Cobb Board of Commissioners in the early 1990s.

Leo Frank Memorial
Rabbi Steven Lebow of Temple Kol Emeth is retiring at the end of June 2020.

Later he took up the cause of working to exonerate Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager who was lynched near what is now Frey’s Gin Road in 1915. In the wake of 9/11, Lebow started an annual Ecumenical service the week before Thanksgiving, inviting faith leaders and worshippers from around the north metro Atlanta for music, humor and interfaith messages of unity.

Earlier this year, Eastside Baptist Church made the news when the Southern Baptist Convention had listed it for possible “defellowshipping” related to a 2017 sexual abuse case.

Newspapers in Texas had reported on allegations of abuse in the SBC, but Eastside Pastor John Hull was publicly critical of the SBC for the listing, saying the congregation on Lower Roswell Road had addressed the matter promptly.

A former Eastside youth ministry volunteer was convicted of two counts of sexual battery in 2016 and is in prison; the church took actions to improve security, strengthen background checks and increase safety as Hull was coming on board.

The SBC later removed Eastside from the list, saying no further investigation was warranted.

In September, a longtime East Cobb church announced it was closing its doors, due to declining an aging membership and financial issues.

Members of Powers Ferry United Methodist Church gathered in early December for “homecoming” as the 65-year-old congregation prepares for its final service on Dec. 29.

Also as the holidays approached, two East Cobb churches became one. Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which had been sharing space with Hope Presbyterian Church on Sandy Plains Road, merged with Christ Presbyterian.

The new church is named Christ Orthodox Presbyterian Church and it meets at 495 Terrell Mill Road.

 

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East Cobb Lions Club Meals on Wheels program delivers Christmas dinners for 34th year throughout the county

East Cobb Lions Club Meals on Wheels
Volunteers of all ages fill fruit baskets with special Christmas messages to be delivered to seniors in Cobb County. (East Cobb News photos by Wendy Parker)

On Christmas Day, the East Cobb Lions Club and the Marietta Lions Club prepared special holiday meals for elderly citizens and their families, and community volunteers helped deliver them around Cobb County.

More than 100 volunteers turned out at Powers Ferry United Methodist Church by mid-morning Monday to cook food, fill plates and fruit baskets, and deliver special messages for about the same number of shut-ins.

East Cobb Lions Club Meals on Wheels

East Cobb LIons Club Meals on Wheels

East Cobb Lions Club Meals on Wheels

Longtime East Cobb Lions Club member Ray Moore said the Meals on Wheels program started when he and other Lions learned that the Cobb Senior Services Department didn’t make deliveries on holidays.

What began as a two-day turnaround before Thanksgiving in 1983 has turned into one of the lasting charitable Christmas traditions anywhere in Cobb County.

In early November, Moore contacts Cobb Senior Services for a list of those in need of meals, and starts making holiday delivery plans. If some recipients need extra meals, then the Lions volunteers make sure to note that.

“I’ve got food for 120 people here,” he said. “We’ve got to do something with it.” The Lions groups raise money throughout the year for the holiday deliveries, including selling $5 tickets for a homemade quilt that will be raffled off in May.

East Cobb Lions Club Meals on Wheels

Pamela Williams, a member of the Marietta Lions Club, said she wanted to be a part of the program after her grandmother received Meals on Wheels in South Carolina. “I could see the light in her eyes,” Williams said. “It showed me that they cared.”

Each recipient is given a plate with sliced turkey and ham, green beans, sweet potatoes, dressing and gravy, cranberry sauce, rolls, small cakes and a fruit basket. The meals are cooked on-site in the church kitchen, which wafted with the savory smells of holiday food.

East Cobb Lions Club Meals on Wheels

Santa Claus paid a visit as volunteers continued to create the fruit basket messages. A first-time volunteer is Dorie Gallagher of the Roswell area of East Cobb, who is spending Christmas alone after her husband died earlier this year.

She admitted it’s been a difficult few months since then, but said “I need to get out, and help the community.”

East Cobb Lions Club Meals on Wheels

At the same table, former East Cobb residents Jay Levy and Debbie Cohen were returning as volunteers, for the fifth and third years, respectively. Both now live in Sandy Springs, after raising now-grown children who graduated from Pope High School.

“We come back and see people we recognize, but the most rewarding thing is when you deliver the meals,” Cohen said.

East Cobb Lions Club Meals on Wheels

East Cobb LIons Club Meals on Wheels

As volunteers filled the fruit bags and loaded food onto the plates, others were getting ready to roll out with the meals. Drivers raised their hands, then got maps for their deliveries.

East Cobb LIons Club Meals on Wheels

East Cobb LIons Club Meals on Wheels
Driving volunteer Jay Levy gets his map from Ray Moore of the East Cobb Lions Club.

Each driving volunteer is typically assigned two or three homes in relative proximity. Levy and Cohen were assigned two residences in the South Cobb area. Among them were an elderly woman with two high school seniors in the Mableton area, and a man living alone in Smyrna.

Levy said the biggest challenge often is squaring up the address on the map with what’s on the road. The latter meal recipient, James Dyer, lives in an apartment building on Sandtown Road, which stretches for miles and is located amid commercial and industrial buildings.

East Cobb Lions Club Meals on Wheels
Jay Levy uses his GPS device to track the Sandtown Road address of a Meals on Wheels recipient.

Dyer opened the door and was eager for some company, as Levy and Cohen placed his food on a kitchen countertop and chatted with him for a few minutes.

East Cobb LIons Club Meals on Wheels

Moore said he’s gratified the holiday Meals on Wheels has grown from “a family thing” in his own household and Lions Club friends to many in the community who simply want to lend a helping hand on Christmas for those who can’t get out.

 

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