Bucksport church offers parenting class

BUCKSPORT – The new church in town is giving the community what it asked for – a lesson in parenting.

Penobscot Bay Presbyterian Church will offer a six-hour seminar, “Training Your Children with Love and Direction,” from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18, at the Grange Hall in Bucksport. Registration for the program will begin at 8:30 a.m.

The Rev. Andrew H. Selle of Essex, Vt., will give biblical and practical instructions for raising children of all ages. Selle is a Christian counselor and an ordained Orthodox Presbyterian minister.

The idea for the seminar grew out of a series of meetings the Rev. Russell J. Hamilton had with community leaders in Bucksport.

“In introducing myself to leaders in the community, I asked a few questions to assess where the church, with a capital C, fit into the mind-set of the people in the town,” said Russell, 43. “In Bucksport, a recurring theme was that parents needed help. They didn’t seem to have the skills needed for leading and guiding their children.

“Domestic violence, substance abuse, sexual abuse – that’s the worst end of family life,” he continued. “It’s the tip of the iceberg, and underneath family life has fallen apart. So, our trying to address those things is what came out in that discussion.”

Hamilton said that he also heard community leaders talk about a sense of hopelessness many people in the Bucksport area seem to exhibit.

“I think when we’re looking at self-worth and hopelessness,” Hamilton said, “there are many books that have value and you learn from them, but the Gospel addresses our needs as human beings on a more fundamental level. It’s not just dealing with external behavior but with the heart as well. We need the external behavior growth that we can get from books, but our need goes deeper than that, and that’s what the Gospel does.”

Hamilton, a native of Scotland, last year moved to Maine from New Orleans after his family was displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

The church he led there for six years was located near Tulane University. The church and his home were “washed away, blown to the four winds,” he said.

“Maine’s more like home weatherwise, and it even looks like Scotland,” he said of the Hancock County landscape.

Hamilton, his wife and four children between 18 months and 7 years old live in Orland.

Penobscot Bay Presbyterian Church has grown to about 45 members over the past year, according to Hamilton.

Services are held at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Sunday at the Verona Grange Hall, 54 Main St., Bucksport.

For information, call Hamilton at 469-6100.