A Living Faith
A conversation with Elder Larry Jones and Rev. Heather Schoenewolf
September 27, 2026 | Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Scripture: Psalm 122; Hebrews 11:1–2
Faith isn't always something that can be explained in a set of points. Sometimes it is better told as a story.
In “A Living Faith,” Elder Larry Jones sits down with Rev. Heather Schoenewolf to talk about the people, experiences, struggles, and communities that have shaped his faith across a lifetime. His story begins in the lively worship of his childhood church, passes through the Jesus Movement and a devastating accident at age 19, and eventually leads to Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon.
Along the way, the conversation asks a larger question for all of us: What does faith look like when we actually live it?
For Larry, the answer has become remarkably simple: love God, love your neighbor, welcome people, and put that love into action.
A Faith That Changes and Grows
Larry grew up across the Ohio River in Coraopolis in the Church of God in Christ. His memories include long worship services filled with singing, dancing, shouting, and music. He accepted the Christian faith as a child and sang in the choir.
But as a teenager, his understanding of faith began to change.
Walking home from his job as a YMCA lifeguard one day, Larry noticed a storefront with fogged windows. Inside was a group of young people with long hair, playing tambourines, singing, and praising God.
They didn't look like the Christians Larry knew. But something about them caught his attention.
“These guys are really Christians. They don't look like Christians, but they were really Christians.”
Larry began attending their Bible studies and eventually became part of the Jesus Movement. What attracted him wasn't simply a different style of worship. He found people learning Scripture together, caring for one another, and taking their faith into the community.
It was an early lesson that would recur throughout his life: faith becomes visible in the way people live.
Faith When Life Gets Hard
At 19, Larry suffered a devastating industrial accident that crushed his arm. Doctors initially believed the damage was beyond repair.
Larry remembers prayer becoming very real during that experience. His family prayed. Larry prayed. His father insisted that doctors wait before amputating the arm.
What followed were 11 surgeries and a long recovery. Larry eventually regained almost all the use of his arm.
He doesn't tell the story as though faith made the experience easy.
“And it was hard. It was very hard.”
That distinction becomes important later in the conversation. For Larry, faith isn't the promise that difficult things won't happen—or even that God's presence will always be something we can immediately feel. It is something that carries us through those times.
Searching for a Church—and for Welcome
Years later, another chapter of Larry's faith journey began when he and his longtime partner, Ron, found themselves looking for a new church.
They visited congregation after congregation. Sometimes the signals that they weren't fully welcome were subtle. Sometimes they weren't subtle at all.
Eventually they visited Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon.
What Larry remembers first isn't a theological statement or church program. He remembers people.
Someone greeted them when they walked through the door. Others shook their hands. When they returned, people remembered them.
“They just made us feel so welcome. They said, ‘Well, welcome back. How are you? We're glad you're here.’”
But Larry and Ron had learned not to assume that friendliness necessarily meant full acceptance. Eventually Larry made an appointment with then-pastor Rev. Donna Giver-Johnston and asked directly whether a gay couple was truly welcome at CPCBA.
Her answer was yes.
Larry remembers becoming emotional when he heard it.
He and Ron kept coming back.
When Welcome Becomes Belonging
The conversation doesn't stop with CPCBA saying that Larry and Ron were welcome.
Larry describes what happened afterward: working alongside other church members on projects, digging post holes, participating in workdays, serving at a men's shelter, joining the men's group, and discovering friendships in unexpected places.
When Larry was hospitalized for surgery, members of the men's group surprised him with a FaceTime call to tell him they were thinking about him and praying for him.
“I'm like, ‘Wow. Wow. That was cool.’”
These aren't dramatic theological moments. They're ordinary moments of people showing up for one another.
And that may be precisely the point.
For Larry, welcome became belonging when people began sharing life together.
What Does a Living Faith Look Like?
Heather eventually asks Larry what God is doing in his life now.
His answer isn't a list of beliefs. He talks about people.
He talks about church workdays and friendships. He talks about feeding people at a shelter. He talks about prayer and concern for members of the congregation. He talks about people willing to get dirty doing the work that needs to be done.
And he returns again and again to one idea.
“Love God, love my neighbor—and Ron, too.”
It's a funny line, but it captures something central to Larry's faith.
He sees the complexity of Scripture and Christian life returning to two commandments: love God and love your neighbor.
“If we love one another and love God, it is the greatest testimony you can do as a Christian.”
Faith That Carries Us
Near the end of their conversation, Heather asks Larry what encouragement he would offer this community as each person tries to live out their faith.
Larry returns to the hardest periods of his own life.
And he makes an important admission:
“I don't always feel God, but my faith carries me to those times where I do feel God.”
Faith, in other words, isn't necessarily constant certainty or constant spiritual feeling.
Sometimes faith is what carries us between those moments.
Larry says he has learned to recognize God at work through other people—and that makes the welcome offered by a church especially important.
“By welcoming people in this church as I was welcomed, I think that's incredibly important.”
Larry and Ron aren't at CPCBA because anything requires them to be.
They're there because they want to be.
They found a place where welcome became community, community became service, and service became one expression of a living faith.
Questions to Carry With You
As you reflect on Larry and Heather's conversation:
Who helped shape your understanding of faith?
Has your faith changed as you've grown older?
Who has made you feel that you truly belonged in a community?
When have other people helped carry your faith during a difficult time?
What might it look like for you to make “love God and love your neighbor” tangible this week?
The Conversation
Rev. Heather Schoenewolf: So, Larry, will you introduce yourself to everyone here? And then I would love to hear how your faith journey began.
Elder Larry Jones: My name is Larry Jones. I grew up right across the river in Coraopolis. I was born in Sewickley Valley, grew up in Coraopolis, and I grew up in the church. I was in the Church of God in Christ. We were considered to be “holy rollers.”
There was a lot of dancing and shouting and very loud services—never under two hours long. Never. Quite often four or five hours. I accepted the Lord when I was a kid, a very young kid, and I sang in the choir and was a member of the church. My church experience was good. It was good. However, it did change.
Heather: Are you able to share a little bit about how your church experience changed over time, but also how your faith might have changed?
Larry: I was working as a lifeguard at the YMCA, and I loved the job. I was walking home, and I walked past this storefront. The windows were all foggy, and I'm like, “Oh, they're smoking in there.” But they weren't. It was just all steamed up.
I decided to stop and look in the window, and there were people playing tambourines and singing songs. I'm like, “Wow, that's just like our church,” but they were all young, and they had long hair. I looked at them for a while, and I decided to go in.
They were singing songs to the Lord and praising God, and they had long, baggy clothing and long, long hair. I had hair too. Where'd it go? I had hair—big-time hair—which, as a lifeguard, when you go in the water, it would drain for like 20 minutes, all from all the hair.
But I went in, and I listened, and I sat with them and sang songs with them. They were very accepting and very friendly, and I said, “Wow, these guys are really Christians. They don't look like Christians, but they were really Christians.”
And that's kind of where it all started. I started to go more and went to the Bible studies—a lot of Bible studies. We had Bible studies twice a week. Eventually I wanted to leave my church, Coraopolis Church of God in Christ, and that did not go over well.
The pastor preached a sermon on me. The sermon was why we should stay with people we know, where we belong. And I didn't feel as though I belonged in that church anymore.
I learned more in four Bible studies with these long-haired people than I had learned there in—I was only 16 years old—but in my few years at that church. With these young, hippie-looking Christians, there was more Word and nourishment than I ever had in my church. I left my church and became a member of the Jesus Movement.
Heather: In Coraopolis, what did that expression of faith look like for you? I've heard you talk about music throughout, but also, what were the beliefs and messages that you've received across time that have been fundamental to how you understand your faith?
Larry: We, as a bunch of young Christians, were going out ministering and helping people and talking to people. We were learning God's Word. We loved one another.
Then I had a horrible, horrible accident. I broke my arm. Actually, I broke this arm—you can see some of the scars—and it was broken in 16 places. It was crushed. Each bone was broken eight places, plus the elbow and the wrist were broken. I got it caught in a machine.
And I prayed. I didn't want to lose my arm. I was 19 years old. They didn't know how to put my arm back together, and I had faith that I was going to keep it.
My father was a different individual, but the night I got hurt, at Sewickley Valley Hospital, they brought me in by ambulance. He told the doctor, “No, we're not going to cut it off.”
The doctor said, “You have to. It's non-repairable.”
And he said, “No, no, no. Doc, look. My wife got the prayer train going, and she believes everything's going to be okay. We're going to leave that arm on. Just leave it on for a night. Maybe we take it off tomorrow, but we ain't taking it off tonight.”
They left my arm on. There are parts of the story which I'm skipping over, but they left my arm on. We continued to pray, and I've got back about 98% use.
It was a testimony because I had 11 surgeries on my arm to put it back together. In 1974, they didn't have the technology. They didn't have the ability to redo that, but I had faith it was going to be okay.
And it was hard. It was very hard.
Heather: So tell us a little bit about how you got here to this community of faith and what your faith journey has looked like through your time here at Community Church.
Larry: Getting here was a blessing.
We attended a Presbyterian church in Bellevue, Ron and I, and we loved it. We could see that church from our kitchen window. It was close, and the people were great. The pastor accepted a position at Duke University as a chaplain. David Dunderdale left that church, and we got a new pastor.
We had a Christmas party at our house, and one of my friends—actually, one of my best friends—asked the pastor, “If Ron and Larry wanted to get married, would you marry them?”
I'm like, “Sean, stop. Stop. Don't do that. Come on.”
The pastor looked down at the ground. He looked back up, and he said, “No, I would not.”
Then we realized in our own kitchen, “We're in the wrong church. We're in the wrong church.”
The people there were very accepting and loving, and the old pastor likewise, but with the new pastor, we left and we were looking for churches.
So this white guy and myself, Ron and Larry, walked into a church one time. Ron grew up Methodist, so he said, “Let's try a couple of Methodist churches and see what's going on.”
We went to a Methodist church, and we sat on a very large pew. There was a woman at the opposite end of the pew or something—I forget the exact configuration—but she sat and looked at us, and she turned away completely, very deliberately away from us.
We're like, “Well, this ain't it. Next.”
We went to a few other churches, and we continued to look for over a year. We came here, and the first person I met in this church was Steve Mellon. He's back where he is always, back there. We walked in, and he said, “Hi, guys. How you doing? Come on in.”
We came on in and sat down, and we liked it. Steve wished us a good farewell, a goodbye, and a bunch of other people shook our hands. We went home like, “Well, that was a pretty good church. That was nice.”
We came back, and it continued. We sat by Gail and—oh gosh, not Linda—Jody? Oh, Mary. I believe it was Mary and some other people. They just made us feel so welcome. They said, “Well, welcome back. How are you? We're glad you're here.”
We came back again and again, and all of a sudden we realized we might be wasting our time with this church because it sure does look good. It looks real good right now. However, the big G word—the gay word—is going to come up. I know it is.
I said, “Ron, I'm going to stop by. I'm going to talk to this Donna, Pastor Donna Giver-Johnston, and I'm going to see what's up, because I'm not going to waste a lot of time on this church if they're not welcoming.”
So I made an appointment. I came in, and she welcomed me into her office. I was in my work clothes. I worked for Columbia Gas. I'm retired from Columbia.
I go in her office, and she's very friendly: “Hi, I'm so glad you stopped by,” and whatever.
I said, “Well, to be honest with you, the reason I'm here is because Ron and I are gay. We've been together”—at that time, it was only 30 years. It was about 30 years.
I said, “If we're not welcome here, we're going to move on. I ain't wasting no more. We're a gay couple.”
She said, “You obviously don't know the history of this church.”
With all due respect, I really didn't care about the history of the church. I just wanted to know if we're welcome.
She told me the story about a past pastor, Brent, and it almost brought me to tears. She said, “You are welcome here. You and your husband, your partner, are welcome here.”
And I'm like—I just lost it. I did. I was in her office.
To cut a very long story a little bit shorter, we've been coming here ever since. We joined online during COVID. We joined the church, but we had been attending here for a number of years.
Heather: Nice. Thank you. So what is God doing in your life of faith now? What do you see God doing in you, through you, in this world? What's God up to in your experience of your faith?
Larry: In my daily walk, I'm constantly conscious of my God and my faith and my belief. I watch Cory Henry a lot online. He's an organist on YouTube, and he's a COGIC member.
I really don't know. I see my ministry, or the biggest part of my ministry, here in this church. We're very concerned about Don. We really love Don Smith and Janet. We're just very concerned about that.
But I've worked a couple of little projects here. I worked with Builder Bob—Bob Nen—and he scared me a little bit when I first met him because he's a little intimidating. But he turned out to be the nicest guy. He was never a bad guy; I don't mean to imply that. But I'm like, “Wow, this guy is pretty cool. I like him. Very, very smart guy. Engineer—you know, you've got to watch him.”
So I had a great time, and I'm like, “Wow, he's really human.”
And then Tim Miller—I worked with Tim Miller. We were digging holes outside, putting posts in. I worked with Steve and just different guys from the church.
We had a men's group. I had intestinal issues, and I had surgery, and I had this big tube stuck up my nose that went down into my stomach. I'll leave the details out, but I had that for over a week. This big tube is hanging out my nose, and the guys called me on Saturday morning because there was a men's meeting here.
I'm like, “It's a FaceTime call. I don't want to do FaceTime.”
It was Steve Mellon—I believe it was Steve—and I picked up, and all the guys were there wishing me well: “Hope you're back soon and feeling good. We're praying for you and your surgery.”
I'm like, “Wow. Wow. That was cool.”
But sitting here talking to the guys, I also realized that they're real people. They're not high and mighty. They're not above it all. They get in the dirt and get dirty.
We had a fun time throwing away a bunch of stuff here out of the church and into a dumpster. I'm good with dumpsters. I'm good. Come to my house.
Then the workdays and other things—very, very good.
Also, the men's shelter. We had a ministry. We went to the men's shelter, feeding people in Bellevue. We went to that shelter, and we were feeding people from Bellevue, and I'm like, “This is the kind of church that I want to be a part of.”
They're not sitting and yakking, coming up with a bunch of rules and silly things.
Donna, Pastor Donna, who is no longer here, preached a sermon on love. I'm real big on that because I see how the Bible is whittled down to two things: Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. You can kind of forget about all that other stuff.
And I'm real simple, so I keep those two: love God, love my neighbor—and Ron, too.
So I see that, and it was so simple. Then Heather, when she came, she preached the same sermon.
It's not complicated, but if we love one another and love God, it is the greatest testimony you can do as a Christian. And I love that. I love the sermon. I love that realism.
Thank you. Did I answer your question?
Heather: You did.
Larry: Did I really?
Heather: I have one last question for you. Do you have any advice or encouragement for this family of faith as we each try to live out our faith?
Larry: In my darkest of times—11 surgeries to put this arm back together—in my darkest of times, realizing that I have a God that I can pray to and believe in and who will deliver.
It doesn't matter how beautiful the church is. It doesn't matter. But my God is real to me. He's real to me.
And I don't want to, you know, ponder and say over and over, “I can feel him.” I don't always feel God, but my faith carries me to those times where I do feel God. And I know, and I see how he works, and I see what he does through his people.
And by welcoming people in this church as I was welcomed, I think that's incredibly important. I really do.
But I love being here. We're here. We have no tie that ties us here, that makes us be here. We're here because we want to be here. We love being here.
And I think when we whittle all the Scriptures down: love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy mind, all thy soul, and love one another as you love yourself.
That's the biggest thing. Pastor Heather has preached that a number of times, and I love it every single time she does. I really do.
Heather: Well, it's in the Bible, so that's why I preach it. So thank you for the props, but we'll give that to God. Will you join me in thanking Larry for sharing?
Larry: Amen. Thank you.
