A History of the Church of the Good Shepherd

CHAPTER TEN: William Harrison Rose

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow ... " --Doxology

On a clear, cold night in February 1978, the beginning of Lent, a gentleman in his first forties drove down from Winnsboro with his wife, Beatrice, to visit with a vestry which had met in the earlier hours of that same evening. A man of understanding, of hope and confidence, William Harrison Rose had just accepted the call to become the twelfth rector of the historic Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd.

Under the skillful guidance of Canon Jules Haley, the Good Shepherd congregation had reorganized appointed a search committee and had gone about the task of calling a rector. Although the parishioners had suffered emotionally during the interim, the religious life of the parish had continued to be one of tranquility. The Church of the Good Shepherd had maintained the Catholic tradition of historic worship.

In the winter of 1977 the Episcopal churchwomen reorganized and once again became a branch of the Diocesan Episcopal Churchwomen. Through the ECW, an active lay ministry began with the women participating in the many diocesan programs and laboring for the extension of the Church. In January 1980, Good Shepherd hosted the Diocesan ECW Convention with over four hundred in attendance.

With the coming of the new rector on March 1, 1978, the congregation of sixty, who remained faithful after the split, set about the work that had to be done. The Rev. William H. Rose had accepted the call as a ringing challenge to guide a recovering congregation to spiritual health.

A graduate of the University of Kentucky and of the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Kentucky, the Rev. Mr. Rose was ordained to the priesthood in December 1963. His first rectorship was at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Winchester, Kentucky. He then served as rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, Winnsboro, South Carolina before coming to the Church of the Good Shepherd.

A firm believer in lay ministry, the Rev. Mr. Rose encouraged and helped to develop the talents among his parishioners. The ECW became an outstanding organization -- strong in almost all aspects of parish life. Their projects are responsible for the development of a church parlor, with furnishings in keeping with a turn-of-the-century church, and for the restoring of the chancel and sanctuary furniture to its original rich oak. An historical marker, a dream come true for the women, stands in front of the church, a chronicle of long ago. The kitchen was renovated and modernized, a major undertaking for the women, with an additional refrigerator, more cabinet space and new china, flatware, and crystal. Although the annual turkey dinner and bazaar disappeared years ago, the women host spaghetti suppers, wedding receptions, brunches and dinners marking special occasions and the bazaar is once again in full swing. Today the women are involved in fashioning needlepoint cushions for the parlor and church sanctuary.

The Episcopal Young Churchmen have extended their ministry to include painting, planting and providing nurseries for special events. More recently they have designed and built a biblical garden, cruciform in shape, on the west side of the church.

The Rev. Mr. Rose established a Flower Guild to prepare the arrangements for the altar, the chapel, and the coffee table on Sundays in the parish house; a full-service program for alcoholic functions on a regular basis.

In the first years of his ministry at Good Shepherd the Rev. Mr. Rose instituted the Seder Feast as part of the Holy Week devotions, introduced the Easter Vigil and inaugurated "Wednesdays at Good Shepherd" condensing parish activities to include junior and senior choir rehearsals, EYC meetings and an instruction class for adults taught by the rector.

In 1978-79 the parish house was extensively renovated with structural changes made in the kitchen, restrooms, choir room, and sacristy; the administration building was refurbished to include a handsome conference room. Parking lots were repaired; air-operated air- conditioning units replaced water -- operated cooling towers. An inner courtyard abounding in seasonal shrubbery connects the administration building with the church and parish house.

Many new memorials are recorded in the parish records: Carillon bells given by the J. Holbrook Williams, Jr. family in memory of Joseph, William and Herbert Riley, brass altar vases by the Misses Estelle and Billie Creighton in memory of their parents, a set of white eucharistic vestments including chasuble, dalmatical and tunicle by the Custy Family, needlepoint kneeler for the two priedieus by the W. T. Clawson, Jr. family in memory of her parents and twin brothers, and an aumbry installed beside the church altar for the reserved sacrament given by Anthony W. LaCapricia.

In the spring of 1983 the vestry felt that the parish had grown large enough to require a second fulltime priest. The Rev. Fielder Israel, Jr. who had come to the Diocese of Upper South Carolina in the fall of 1982 to enroll in a one year Clinical Pastoral Education program at the William S. Hall Institute and had served part-time became the new assistant, his duties beginning in August 1983.

The Church of the Good Shepherd is a parish of great strength. The Stephen ministers, Mr. Worth T. Allen and Mr. James R. Smith, meet the pastoral needs of the parish; Mrs. Joseph I. Fodor makes scheduled visits to the State Hospital. Financial aid helped St. Luke's Center, a program for young people operating at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Columbia. Parishioners serve on Diocesan committees and commissions and the rector is past president of the Standing Committee, Secretary of the Diocese, Secretary of Bishop and Council, a member of Commission on Ministry, chairman of the committee on Constitution and Canons, chairman of the committee on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, and served several summers as director of a camping session at Gravatt.

A new beginning can be inspirational for priest and parish. Six years have passed since the former rector, curate and a majority of the members of the congregation left the church. The Church of the Good Shepherd takes a measure of deep comfort in Father Rose's ability to mingle both the sacred and the secular to continue a healing so complete that many new parishioners are unaware of a "split."

During the Rev. Lewis N. Taylor's rectorship the parish was called "the living example of the Golden Rule." With the past bound to the present in a very touching way, the tall majestic spire of the Church of the Good Shepherd reaches out across the generations with praise and thanksgiving and with a determination to stay forever.