Valley News Goes to Church

Olivet Church Celebrates Rebirth
Easter Services Finally Held in New Home
By Carolyn Lorié
Valley News Staff Writer

West Lebanon -- With wispy hair and a dress the color of cotton and daffodils, 18-month-old Emily Devers looks around the new church, wide-eyed and silent, as Pastor Joe Scearbo invokes the story of Jonah and the whale, the miracle of the raising of Lazarus and the Acts of the Apostles.
It is an Easter sermon about resurrection, but yesterday morning the story of the Olivet Baptist Church was one of being born again.
Started in 1993 by Scearbo, the church has grown from a handful of people gathering in the home Scearbo shares with his wife, Michele, to about 50 people showing up for sermons in a cramped space on Railroad Avenue to yesterday's inaugural service in the parish hall of the former Holy Redeemer Church on Maple Street.
“We are just so excited, because we've actually prayed about this whole property since the Catholic Church closed,” said Scearbo, minutes before his sermon.
The path to the parish hall, however, was a complicated one paved with deals between developers and a diocese, zoning board decisions and threats of lawsuits.
In 2003, Holy Redeemer Church closed because of a lack of priests, but the Catholic Diocese of Manchester held onto the property. Last year, it was in negations to sell the 3-acre lot, the church and the parish hall to Smith-Jackson, a development company based in Nashua, N.H. Part of the deal would have included ousting the Montessori School housed in the basement of the parish hall and selling that building to the Olivet Baptist Church. But Elise Thayer, head of the school, refused to leave, and threatened a lawsuit against the diocese.
In the meantime, the Lebanon Zoning Board rejected Smith-Jackson's plan to subdivide the lot, by selling the hall to Olivet, tearing down the old church and building single-family houses in its place. The deal eventually fell apart, leaving the school and the church facing an uncertain future.
Finally, Hanover developer Jolin Salazar-Kish bought the property, signed a five-year-lease with the school and rented the hall to Olivet.
“It's wonderful,” said parishoner, Lorraine Slack, of Lebanon. “We felt we needed growth and the lord led us to this space. And we feel the Holy Spirit already.”
Before starting the church, Scearbo, who is 48, was businessman living in the suburbs of Boston. He was raised a Catholic, but at 24 he said he was “called by the Lord” at which time he became a minister. Scearbo and Michele moved to Lebanon with their three children 13 years ago and put a sandwich board in their front yard inviting people to a bible-study class they held on Thursday evenings.
“We started with no one,” said Scearbo.
But word of the new church -- named for the mountain where Jesus was said to have spent his last hours in the garden of Gethsemane -- spread, and yesterday morning about 60 people gathered to listen to Scearbo preach. As he did so, he paced the dais, raised his arms and even jumped once to emphasize a “hallelujah.” He rarely looked at his notes and spoke in a stentorian voice that could be heard in the basement where the children had gathered for Sunday school.
Whatever twists and turns it took to get the church to Maple Street, its members, like Slack, spoke of the process in terms of faith and patience.
“It was a blessing because it showed us the power of God and the power of prayer,” said Rocky Moxley of Hartland.
Moxely said he joined the church five years ago and throughout Scearbo's preaching, he punctuated points by calling out: “Amen,” or “Yes, Lord God.”
Unlike many churches, which seem to be dominated by an aging population, Olivet has attracted a large group of young people. Among them are Michelle and Patrick Wade, who are 29 years old and 30 years old, respectively.
The couple moved to the Upper Valley from Michigan eight months ago with their two young sons and began searching for a spiritual home.
Though they have not officially joined Olivet, they said they are through looking. The Wades were one of many couples who held babies and toddlers on their laps throughout the service.
The church has about 50 core members, which Scearbo described as having a “great spirit” and being “one big happy family.” The hope, he said, is to double in number over the next five to 10 years -- but to not change in the process.
“My goal is to strive to maintain that spirit as we grow in the future,” he said.
As Scearbo closed his first sermon in the parish hall on Maple Street, a muted gray light seeped through the windows, the congregation stood for a final hymn and Emily Devers slept on her father's shoulder.
Valley News staff writer, Mark Davis, contributed to this article.
Carolyn LoriÐ can be reached at clorie@valleynews.com or (603) 727-3220.
Photo by James M. Patterson, Valley News