Rejoicing in Our Present: Meet Ben and Nina Gregson and David and Ellen Wilcock
Brewster Baptist Church is celebrating our 200th Anniversary in 2024! Our theme for this year is Remembering Our Past, Rejoicing in Our Present, Reimagining Our Future.
This week we’re Rejoicing in Our Present with Ben & Nina Gregson and David & Ellen Wilcock sharing some of their memories and experiences at BBC.
Ben Gregson, Nina Lindstrom, David Wilcock, and Ellen Hooper all attended Brewster Baptist Church as kids with their families and attended Youth Group together. After college Ben and Nina got married, and David and Ellen got married.
After time in other parts of the country, both couples have returned and are again active members of BBC. Ben is currently on our Leadership Team. Nina volunteers in our Caring Cupboard and is part of our Bicentennial Planning Team. David is our church Treasurer and Ellen is a Deacon who leads our Cards for Caring Ministry. They got together and shared some of their memories and experiences at BBC.
What are some of your earliest memories at BBC?
I think one of my earliest memories was that they used to have a Christmas party here at church in the fellowship hall. This is when I was a little kid. There used to be somebody dressed up as Santa, and they used to give out presents. But the thing I remember most is they had hot dogs that they gave out to all the kids. And I thought that was just fantastic. ~ Ben
I think one of the earliest memories is Children’s Sunday in June, when we could all get a geranium to take home after the children’s service. ~ Nina
And I remember again when I was a little kid and we had fellowship time before Sunday school. And so we all gathered in the very old fellowship hall and sat in the metal chairs were all lined up in rows and had singing time. And Mrs. Berg was the pianist, and she played the piano, and there were announcements, and then we went off to our Sunday school classes. ~ Ellen
I’m a wash ashore. My family moved down here and retired when I was 13. So I came down here at the start of high school, and my earliest memories are up in what’s now called the chapel, but was the sanctuary. Those seats were extremely uncomfortable, even with the padding that was on them. And as a kid, I wasn’t too happy sitting on those seats. ~ David
And that’s when the four of us all became friends through our youth group. We’ve been friends since then. ~ Nina
(Nina and Ellen were friends since they were little kids in First grade.)
That was the start was the youth group. And I think from the beginning, for us, and for all four years, it was Jim and Harriet Stehouwer and Connie and Steve Martin who were the youth leaders that kept us going. ~ David
Who were some of the people who had an influence on your time at BBC?
Just like today, the church is all about the people. So we can just rattle off a ton of names of people that we knew growing up here at the church and were an influence on what we did. I mean, there is a long line of Sunday school teachers. I can remember being in my mom’s Charlotte’s first grade Sunday school class, and Mary Ellen Sanders played the piano. ~ Ben
I think for me, Jim and Harriet Stehouwer and Connie and Steve Martin. But then Connie’s parents, Gil and Evelyn Beale. I have recently remembered that Gil and Evelyn really were ahead of the times because they went to before church started, they went to Latham’s and Boxwood’s and picked up a number of kids.
Latham’s was for girls and Boxwood’s was for boys, These were special needs children. They brought them to church, got them integrated, and that wasn’t done. And they had a love for it, and they did it faithfully every Sunday. ~ Ellen
I think for me, it was Connie and Steve Martin. As I said, they just lived down the street from my folks house. And it was easy to walk down there because back in those days, Underpass Road was just a little old street that meandered through Brewster. ~ David
Connie and Steve were probably a big influence for me, too. They made you feel so welcome. They had Bible studies in their home, and it was very comfortable. ~ Nina
One thing that we were talking about earlier today was that we were a youth group, but we were also a group that did stuff together outside. So for me, anyway, the friends that I did things with during high school were my youth group friends. ~ Ellen
That was a good thing about [youth group]. I mean, just like today, it’s not easy being a teenager. It’s important to have friends in a positive environment. And the church certainly provided that. ~ Ben
Three marriages came out of that youth group. There was no dating in the youth group. It was all post youth. ~ Ellen and David
What are you most proud of as a member of Brewster Baptist Church?
I think for me, the thing that I’m most proud of about our church is how much we give to our community, to missions. I mean, if there is any time that just even little things like the suitcases, anything that is asked for, it’s immediately gotten. I think that’s a big thing for our church. ~ Nina
Along the same lines, I was going to say something similar, the giving nature of the church, but the mission trips, going back to Puerto Rico – 1 (our first trip to PR) It was January and it was Puerto Rico, so who wouldn’t want to? For me, that first trip was a really meaningful trip. [Ellen and I] weren’t living here, we weren’t members at that time, but we never weren’t affiliated with this church. And Ben mentioned to me this trip was coming up and, yeah, I’d like to do that. That resulted in a number of trips, And I think it’s just reflective of the church and how giving and caring the church is. ~ David
I like the way that our church has grown, not only in numbers, but in faith groups that have come, all different denominations and nondenominations. It’s what we’re all about. It’s what we should be, and we’re working towards that. And I think along with that, spiritually, our church is becoming a stronger church. It’s special, especially when there are so many churches that are not, they’re not growing. ~ Ellen
I remember something Doug talked about in the sermon – I remember him talking about unity a couple of weeks ago. And that’s been a big part of our church, because, like Ellen said, there aren’t a whole lot of traditional American Baptists that are part of the congregation, a whole range of different faith backgrounds, Catholics, Presbyterians, you name it. It crosses over the political spectrum, too. There are people here from Republicans far on the right to Democrats far on the left. [Politics are] kind of left behind. And we focus on bigger things when we’re a part of this church. ~ Ben