Our Worship ServicesSaturday Service: 5:00 p.m.
Holy Eucharist Rite II
Lake Oconee Lutheran Church
1089 Greensboro Highway, Eatonton
Sunday Service: 9:30 a.m.
Holy Eucharist Rite II
303 North Main Street, Greensboro
Click here to visit our Facebook page where our services are live-streamed and available for later viewingOur Staff and Leadership
Our Rector:
The Rev. Bill Combs spent his early life growing up in eastern and central Kentucky. He attended Emory University for his undergraduate education, where he met Jennifer Waddell. He graduated from Emory in 1983, and married his college love, Jennifer, two years later. After college, Bill attended Harvard’s medical and dental schools, graduating in 1988. From there, he and Jennifer moved to Dallas, Texas, where Bill was trained as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon at Parkland Hospital. He and Jennifer always wanted to return to Georgia when the training was completed, and they did so in 1992. He practiced surgery in Duluth and Cumming with a wonderful group of people and a very talented senior surgeon until 2000. In the late 1990’s, Bill began to experience what he can only describe as “a call from God into something very different.” He went through the two-year discernment process offered by the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta for those who are thus afflicted, the outcome of which was a recommendation to ordained ministry. In the fall of 2000, he enrolled at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria. He graduated from there in 2003, becoming an associate rector at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Columbus, Georgia. There, he worked primarily with the Children and Youth programs. In 2007, Bill was called to be the rector of St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church in Oakwood, Georgia. He served there for eight wonderful years. In January of 2016, Bill began his life as the rector of Redeemer, which he has enjoyed tremendously. Bill’s time away from the church is spent largely with his family. Bill and Jennifer have two children.
Our Vestry:
Catherine Crosby, Senior Warden, Administration
Michael Kelly, Junior Warden, Building and Grounds
Jeri Borchers, Congregational Growth and Development
Scott Chesbro, Christian Education
Ann Goff, Parish Life
Jim Hudson, Communications
Connie Karpinsky, Outreach
Mark Prosser, Worship and Spiritual Growth
Carl Stollenmeyer, Stewardship
Heather Kennerson, Treasurer
Kathy Kurelic, Vestry Clerk
Our Staff:
Brinkley Pound, Parish Administrator
Jenny Moore, Organist
Hue Jang, Organist
Our History
This church was organized on September 23, 1863, by the Right Reverend Stephen Elliott, the first Bishop of Georgia. Its original members included two Greensboro families and several women who had migrated inland from Charleston and Savannah to escape the Civil War. The Gothic Revival-styled building was designed and built in 1868 by J. G. Barnwell of Rome, Georgia. The first rector was the Reverend Joshua Knowles, who led the church for nineteen years. Knowles and his wife are buried in the garden on the north side of the church which is now the Redeemer Remembrance Garden. The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Redeemer is unique in never having closed its doors since 1868; it is a rare and intact example of Gothic architecture in the South and remains the only Episcopal church in Greene County, Georgia.
Knowles Remembrance Garden
Throughout the history of Christianity, the Church has provided for burial within churchyards or crypts. This ancient tradition is consistent with the Church’s belief in a decent and reverent burial for all. For family and friends, comfort may be drawn from interment on consecrated church property. While in modern times the traditional churchyard has disappeared as an actively used place of burial, Church of the Redeemer is able to provide a consecrated place for the interment of ash remains of Redeemer members and their families in the Knowles Remembrance Garden, a landscaped area on the north side of the church building.