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In this week's Family News (Scroll to Learn More):
- Hinges- Pastor and People: Part Three
- Churchwide Survey
- Well Wishes for Dennis & Paula
- After-Hours Coverage During the Transition Period
- A Message from Liza, The Media Coordinator
- From the Heritage Room
- Annual Back to School Breakfast & Parents' Meeting
- Fall Kickoff Cookout for Children & Their Families
- Youth Parent Meeting
- Faith Journey Book Study Starting September 8
- WOC Luncheon
- Rise Against Hunger
- CROP Hunger Walk
- Helping Churches Thrive Creative Workshop Retreat
- WOC August School Supply Collection for ourBridge
- Fall Churchwide 2025 Save the Dates
- Prayer List, Sympathy, Thanks, and Celebrations
- Financial Update
- Minister On Call Schedule
- After Hours On Call Schedule
- Staff Contact Info
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Hinges - Pastor and People: Part Three
by Dennis W. Foust, Senior Minister
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My beloved St. John’s, I loved you before I knew you. Let me explain.
I first learned about St. John’s from a minister named Tom Graves in the autumn of 1987. Tom had just accepted the call of St. John’s in September. He was visiting his parents, Allen and Helen, in Louisville, KY. Tom’s father had been a professor and dean at the seminary for twenty-five years.
During his retirement, Dr. Allen Graves continued to lecture in classes from time to time. However, he lived with Parkinson’s Disease which caused him to shuffle as he walked. For those few years, when he was scheduled to lecture, I carried Allen’s book satchel from their home to campus and back to their home across the street. Throughout my master’s and doctoral degree studies, I became better acquainted with Allen and Helen. Knowing we had young children, Helen would always send me home with vegetables from their garden. Since my father’s family was from Arkansas and the Graves were from Arkansas, we told stories of the state which was almost unknown to most people around the Kentucky seminary.
When their son, Tom, came to visit them that Autumn, we talked about the troubles being caused by fundamentalists. We also spoke of how some churches were courageously acting on Baptist principles. He told me about this church he was going to serve in Charlotte, NC. “It is a forward-looking church.” he said. “St. John’s knows how to be Baptist.” Over the 1990s and early 2000s, Tom and I served together in a variety of ways to help Alliance of Baptists and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship emerge as new movements for churches like St. John’s.
In the Autumn of 2011, after I had become Senior Minister of St. John’s, Paula and I were in Richmond to visit Caleb and Mary Beth, our youngest son and daughter-in-law. They were both students at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, the seminary of which Tom Graves was the founding president after he resigned St. John’s. Wendy drove Tom to meet me for lunch. We talked about St. John’s, BTSR and our kids, his parents, and that weekend twenty-five years earlier.
Have you ever considered how hinges are metaphors for life’s journey.
Between the Autumns of 1987 and 2011, Tom and I were on different journeys – yet our lives shared hinge moments. Hinges enable doors to open and close. Some hinge moments provide opportunities and other hinge moments close to protect you from dangerous experiences. Of course, this also means that some hinge moments allow you to walk into difficult situations and close off protection. What hinge moments have been part of your journey?
When I invited Tom Graves to preach on Heritage Sunday several years ago, we discussed how we never lived in the same city at the same time. Yet, our lives experienced the same hinge points: Arkansas roots, fathers who were Baptist pastors, calls to ministry, impacted by fundamentalism, opportunities to begin new structures for theologically progressive Baptists, and St. John’s.
Beloved, my journey now reaches a new hinge point. I love you and have been blessed by serving you. Thank you for allowing the hinges to swing my way so I had this opportunity. Below you will find our contact information for the next few months.
Dennis & Paula Foust Home Contact Information:
5202 Strawberry Hill Drive
Apartment C
Charlotte, NC 28211
Paula – 704.705.0203 or paula7674@att.net
Dennis – 704.533.0303 or dwfoust88@gmail.com
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Help define the hiring profile for our next Senior Minister!
Please submit your survey by August 25!
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The St. John’s Pastor Search Team is tasked with identifying and recommending the next Senior Minister following Dr. Foust’s retirement in August, and your perspective on the type of candidate we should look for is important. We are asking for your participation in two ways:
- Step 1 is completing a quick survey to capture your thoughts on the demographics, background, and characteristics of an ideal candidate.
- Step 2 will come in September when we gather as a church for a conversation based on the survey results, and to further refine any input on key priorities for the Search Team.
Details on what we are asking you to do now:
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Please take a few minutes now to complete the anonymous survey by clicking on the link provided here, or by entering the link address in your browser. https://forms.gle/Q1Dda2Fhq8wgWwZj6
- There are 9 questions that ask you to select from options provided, and one question for you to provide any additional input you feel is critical.
- Each member or regular attendee is asked to share their input, meaning there will be multiple surveys completed for each family. We just ask each person to use the link to complete your input once.
Paper copies of the survey are being sent to those members who normally receive a printed version of the Family News. However, if you are unable to complete this online and need a paper copy to complete, please reach out to Amanda Morrison in the church office. Please return your paper copy to the after hours box outside of Amanda's office.
There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, and we are excited to receive your input! Thank you for your prayerful attention to this important part of our process.
~ St. John’s Pastor Search Team
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| Well Wishes for Dennis & Paula | | At our luncheon after worship on August 24 we will collect notes you have written to Dennis and Paula. Please bring a note expressing your appreciation for the love and support they have shared with St. John's! | | |
After-Hours Coverage During the Transition Period | |
As St. John’s enters a season of transition, we are implementing a new system to ensure that urgent needs are met even outside of regular business hours. Beginning this week, the Family News will list two key contacts each week: a Minister on Call and an Administrator on Call.
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The Minister on Call is your contact for pastoral care needs—such as illness, tragedy, or other urgent spiritual concerns—that cannot wait until the church office reopens. Rev. Lee Gray and Rev. Kheresa Harmon will alternate in this role.
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The Administrator on Call is your contact for facilities-related issues—including building access, maintenance concerns, or alarms—that require immediate attention. Amanda Morrison will continue in this role, supported by members of the congregation. This week, Todd Stillerman will serve as the Administrator on Call.
If you encounter an issue after hours, please reach out to the appropriate person listed in the Family News. They will either assist directly or connect you with someone who can.
We ask for your patience and understanding during this transition. Staffing is reduced, and our congregational volunteers are generously offering their time to help. Everyone involved is committed to responding promptly and compassionately.
Thank you for your support as we navigate this time together.
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| | A Message from Liza, The Media Coordinator | | Hi St. John's! I will be taking a break from the Media Coordinator position during the month of September as I prepare for my wedding. My last day before the break will be August 31, and I plan to return to serving on October 6th. After the 31st, please direct all Family News submissions to Matt Comer at matthewmhcomer@gmail.com. Thank you for your understanding! | | |
From the Heritage Room... | |
“Thank you” to Dr. Foust
—for your encouragement and support of the work that has been done in preserving the heritage of St. John’s.
Shortly after he arrived at St. John’s in 2011, Dr. Foust said he was surprised to learn there was no on-going plan of celebrating the history of St. John’s. Since Fredda Kimball and Linda Crowder were just beginning to collect and organize various documents, pictures, and other items of our history, he proposed the idea of having a Heritage Sunday every year on the Sunday closest to March 26- the official date of the organization of the church in 1922-thus began our yearly Heritage Sunday celebrations.
For the first celebration in 2012 Dr. Foust wrote:
“Dr. Alan Neely was a friend of St. John’s who once said, “Church history is neat when you are reading about it; but when you are making it, church history can be messy stuff.” As you listen to the stories of St. John’s transformational journey, through nine decades of life and ministry, you are hearing about more than just another congregation of Christian faith. You are hearing about one of the most creative and progressive Christian communities of faith, in the southern United States, during the twentieth century. And now, this creativity and progressive journey continues into the twenty-first century as well.
For the celebration in 2014, he wrote:
“St. John’s was birthed as “a servant church.” The organizing members were intentional about writing language into the St. John’s Covenant which enabled cooperation and collaboration through ecumenism and inclusiveness. It is easy to understand why St. John’s was one of the first congregations – not only in Charlotte but also in the southern states – to be intricately involved in its community, to initiate racial understanding and reconciliation, to begin social ministries to serve the poor and marginalized, to ordain women to ministry, to build bridges between faith and health, to nurture a relational community based on acceptance of diversity and to offer a welcoming fellowship to all persons.
Through the decades, St. John’s has relied on these founding principles of the St. John’s Covenant. Still today, we are a servant church, committed to God as disciples of Jesus Christ. In these days of post-denominationalism, we continue our quest to be Christ’s Church, incarnating Christ’s mission of service through principles which are rooted in the Baptist soil of freedom: freedoms expressed as soul competence, congregational autonomy, religious freedom for all and separation of church and state.”
Dr. Foust participated in choosing the theme for our Heritage Sunday celebrations. He planned the worship service for those Sundays around the theme and when on several occasions, we had a guest proclaimer(s), he coordinated inviting our guests- Dr. Thomas Graves (2012), Dr. Robert Sellers (2014), Rev. Nancy Morris and Rev. Nancy Petty (2015), and Rev. Tommy McDearis (2016). In July 2016, we celebrated the 90th Anniversary of the first service in the sanctuary. When Dr. Foust learned that the minister for that first service in 1926 was the Senior Minister of First Baptist in Raleigh, he immediately said he knew the current minister at First Baptist in Raleigh and invited Dr. Christopher Chapman as the guest proclaimer for that Sunday.
He graciously wrote “A Foreword that Looks Forward” for the 100th Anniversary Book. When a booklet was written on the theme for a particular Heritage Sunday, he reviewed (and of course, offered his opinion) and wrote a “Foreword “for several of those booklets.
On at least two occasions, he made us aware of items in the church related to our heritage that needed to be preserved. The first of these was the large disk, now embedded in the front wall of the church (thanks to Don Swofford). This inscription on the disk is “St. John’s 1922.” It was discovered in a storage room in the outside entrance to Lasater Hall. The original purpose of the disk is unknown, but it may have been intended to have been placed when the sanctuary building was built (completed in 1926). The second items were the stained-glass window panels now displayed in the back hallway (thanks to Rick Walker). These panels probably were removed and not replaced when the sanctuary was renovated in 1963. It is unknown why they were being stored in the men’s room on the third floor.
Without his interest in our heritage, we might have a Heritage Room, but we might not have truly celebrated our heritage over the past fourteen years.
With appreciation,
Fredda Kimball and Linda Crowder, Church Archivists
Linda Crowder
Heritage Resource Team
| Back - To - School Breakfast & Parents' Meeting | Children and families are invited to our annual Back-to-School Breakfast on Sunday, August 24 at 9:15 a.m. in the SJBC Library Commons. Following a continental breakfast parents will meet with Kheresa to discuss Children’s Sabbath, the Nativity Play, and the new Sunday school year. |
Fall 2025 Cookout for Children & Families | |
Let’s "fall into Fall 2025" with a cookout at the home of Kelli, Eric, Hailey, and Grayson McCombs (6508 Calvert Commons Drive, Huntersville, NC 28078) at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, September 6!
Please RSVP here by September 1.
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You are invited to join the Faith Journey Book Study. We will begin meeting on Monday September 8 and will meet each Monday at 11:00 in the Church Lounge. Our book for the fall is Gospel Medicine by Barbara Brown Taylor. Books can be ordered by contacting Loretta Brown (lorettaybrown@gmail.com or 434-579-2669). All are welcome to this discussion group. For further information contact Kathy Bragg or Loretta Brown. |
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WOMEN OF THE CHURCH ANNUAL LUNCHEON | |
We’re looking forward to our annual Women of the Church Luncheon and Business Meeting on Sunday, September 14, 2025, in Broach Hall immediately following the worship service.
This special gathering is a wonderful opportunity to reconnect, share fellowship, and welcome friends—both familiar faces and those we haven’t seen in a while.
We are especially excited to welcome our guest speaker, LeDayne Polaski, Executive Director of the Mecklenburg Metropolitan Interfaith Network (Meck MIN), who will share an inspiring message with us.
Cost: $15 per person
Registration is now open and runs through September 9th. Payment must be made prior to the event. You can register through Realm, or by calling Amanda Morrison in the church office, or by filling out the paper form and giving it to Nancy Wilson on Sunday the 31st or September 9th.
Mark your calendars, invite a friend, and plan to join us for this meaningful time together.
Donations will be collected at the door for project Dignity Drive - Restoring Hope & Confidence. Requested items include: New Underwear: Boys 4-16, Girls 4-16, Women's S-3X, Bras - all sizes and Feminine Hygiene Products: Sanitary napkins, tampons, adult incontinence briefs.
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Rise Against Hunger - September 28 | |
We’re coming together to pack 15,000 meals for families in need around the world!
Partnering with Rise Against Hunger, an international humanitarian organization, we’re joining a global movement to end hunger by empowering communities, nourishing lives, and responding to emergencies. Since its founding, Rise Against Hunger has packaged and distributed over 600 million meals to countries worldwide.
This is a unique, family-friendly way to make a real impact — join us and be part of something bigger!
Register Today by visiting the link here!
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Helping Churches Thrive Creative Workshop Retreat | |
November 14-15 at Ardmore Baptist, Winston-Salem
with accommodations at the Hawthorne Inn
All church leadership teams (paid and volunteer) are invited to join us for the Helping Churches Thrive Creative Workshop Retreat. Designed for Deacon Boards, Finance Committees, Personnel Committees, Properties Committees, other church leadership teams and church staff, this retreat offers impactful large group presentations on leading change and navigating conflict from pastors and lay leaders. It also includes practical learning tracks, collaborative learning spaces and small group sessions focused on the needs of today’s churches.
Participants will have the opportunity to choose from the following learning tracks:
- LEGAL – Abuse Prevention and Response
Leaders: Jay Kieve, CBF Global Abuse Prevention and Response advocate & director of Ministerial Transitions; and Jason Cogdill, CBFNC legal resources partner
- FINANCE & PROPERTY – Building Use, Legacy Giving, Financial Resources, Aging Buildings
Leaders: Shauw Chin Capps, CBF Foundation president/CBF chief development officer; Bradly Boberg, CBF Global congregational stewardship officer; Jim Hylton, CBFNC business administration coordinator; Scott Hudgins, CBFNC Helping Pastors Thrive director; Jeanne Baucom, senior pastor, First Baptist, Laurinburg; Emily Hull McGee, senior pastor, First Baptist on Fifth, Winston-Salem
- PERSONNEL – Healthy Hiring Practices, Personnel Structures, Personnel Handbooks
Leaders: Alan Gill, Ardmore Baptist administrator; Larry McAlister, Ardmore Baptist personnel chair; Dennis Foust, retired pastor of St. John’s Baptist, Charlotte; David Hull, retired pastor of First Baptist, Huntsville, AL; Lou Ann Gilliam, CBFNC Ministerial Equipping director
- CONGREGATIONAL LEADERSHIP – Volunteer Selection and Training, Spiritual Formation of Leaders
Leaders: Matt Cook, Center For Healthy Churches director; Jack Glasgow, retired pastor of Zebulon Baptist, Zebulon; Larry Hovis, CBFNC executive coordinator
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LEADING CHANGE & NAVIGATING CONFLICT – Designed for Clergy
Every session provides actionable tools to spark imagination and transform church leadership and ministry. Whether you’re tackling immediate challenges or rejuvenating your congregation’s vision, this retreat equips you to lead with confidence and creativity in an ever-evolving world.
*Early Bird Discount* through September 15: (rooms included with registration)
- $55 per person for shared room
- $110 per person for single room.
After Sept. 15. cost increases to $70 per person for shared room or $140 per person for single room.
- $25 for retreat-only (no room needed)
Register here.
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OurBridge for Kids School Supply Drive | |
The Women of the Church are sponsoring a collection of school supplies and gently used or new school uniforms for our ministry partner ourBridge for Kids from now through September 15.
Our Bridge for Kids provides resources and out-of-school programs specifically designed for immigrant and refugee children and their families. Their goal is to address the social service gaps and help newly arrived children and their families adapt, develop a sense of belonging, and thrive in Charlotte.
Drop off bins will be available in the Giving Nook beginning this Sunday.
We are collecting the following items for the age and size range of K-8:
- Backpacks
- Binders, folders notebooks, and lined paper
- Dry erase markers, crayons, colored pencils, pens and pencil cases
- White, navy or red polo shirts
- Khaki or navy pants and shorts
I was a stranger and you welcomed me” Matthew 25:35. Help us extend a loving hand to these children as a new school year starts!
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| Fall 2025 Churchwide Save The Dates: | |
- Children's Sabbath and World Communion Sunday, October 5
- Fall Festival Sunday, October 26
- All Saints Sunday, November 2
- NAMI Walk Saturday, November 8
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Prayer List, Sympathy, Thanks, and Celebrations | |
Current Prayer Concerns:
Judy Kersey, Carl Phillips, Ken Sanford
Continuing Prayer:
Mary Rickenbaker, Joseph Freeman
Celebration:
We rejoice with Kimberly and Steven Follis on the birth of their daughter, Abigail Grace! She was born at 6:56 a.m. on Sunday, August 17, weighing 7 pounds. Welcome to God's beautiful world, Abigail Grace! Your church family is so thankful you are here!
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2025 Full Year Budget – $1,241,000
July Financials
Budgeted Income - $723,917
Actual Income Received - $703,942
Income over (under) budget - ($19,975)
Actual Expenses Paid - $720,041
Income/Expense Surplus (Deficit) - ($16,099)
Global Missions Offering - $23,000
Income Received thru August 20 - $18,170
| | Minister On Call Schedule |
- Aug 18 - 24: Lee
- Aug 25 - 31: Kheresa
| - Aug 18 - 24: Todd Stillerman
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Staff Contact Information
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Rev. Dennis Foust, PhD, Senior Minister - 704-359-7234 (cell); 704-333-5428, ext. 2012
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Rev. Lee Gray, Minister for Congregational Care - 704-333-5428, ext. 2015; 704-451-1309 (cell)
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Rev. Kheresa Harmon, Minister for Children & their Families - 704-333-5428, ext. 2018; 910-890-3392 (cell)
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Noel Lance, Interim Minister for Worship & Music and Organist
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Liza Tindall, Media Coordinator
- Chloe Hall, Children's Choir Director
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Amanda Morrison, Church Administrator - 704-333-5428, ext. 0
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Lydia Olmsted, Weekday School Director - 704-333-5428, ext. 2039
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