The Potter's House Lismore

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The Lismore Potter's House is a Christian Pentecostal Church with a strong emphasis on evangelism^[1]. The church has helped to sponor missionary activity in the Potter's House churches in Fiji, India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Scotland and Vietnam, both finacially and with missionary visits. Also two fomer pastors from the Lismore Church have been missionaries. Both in Papua New Guinea, and one also in Scotland. The name "The Potter's House" comes from Jeremiah 18:2 Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

1 History
2 Santa Shooting
3 Johnny Lee Clary
4 Church Affiliations
5 See Also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] History

The Potter's House Christian Fellowship in Lismore was opened in November 1986 by Pastor Bruce Callahan and his wife Dale who came from Geraldton Western Australia to Lismore specifically to start a Potter's House Church. He remained there as head pastor for three years until Mike Butler, also from Geraldton, took over the pastorate in 1990. Pastor Butler with his wife Jan was senior Pastor for 12 years in Lismore until he went to Papua New Guinea to swap churches with Pastor Ron Chisholm with his wife Kerry who took the pastorate in Lismore in 2002. Pr Chisholm went to pastor in Dundee Scotland in 2005 and has since moved to Hederson New Zealand to assume the national leadership of the churches there. The pastorate position was taken by Greg Haagenson since 2005. The Church began in a the city hall, and then was in Eggins lane for 15 years. It has been in the CBD in 16 Carrington st Lismore for about 5 years.

[edit] Santa Shooting

During the Christmas period of 1994 the Church made international headlines with a street drama skit in which it was depicted that Santa was shot. The drama depicted a duel between Santa and a supporter of a Christian Christmas. While the church members insist that the drama was funny and in good taste, the international media was not so convinced. One national media correspondent did a reenactment and almost every National newspaper ran major articles about it. Pastor Mike Butler was flown to Sydney to be on channel nines A Current Affair interviewed by Mike Munro. He also did many radio interviews including the John Laws show and a New Zealand radio talk back programme.

While many concluded that Butler had gone too far, butler claimed that he was defending Christmas from an the “idol” of Santa Clause, and also likened himself to Gideon in the Old Testament and David and Goliath with him being David and Goliath being the corrupt media. Butler received several death threats and hate phone calls, yet he also received calls from supporters from different Christian denominations for his stand. Newspaper reports said that there were children screaming and crying. Butler said that it was mainly one child who often screamed and cried.

Although Butler faced the brunt of the media and death threats, he was not actually involved in the drama, as was often misreported. A church member made up the skit the morning of the drama.^[2]

[edit] Johnny Lee Clary

In August of 2006, Johnny Lee Clary, the former Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan who converted to Christianity in the late 1980's, came to the Lismore Potter's House for two nights to share his conversion experience. During the time of his visit, there were media reports of Ku Klux Klan activity in Casino a town just out of Lismore, which was also where Clary was preaching his final night. The story made local headlines in the Northern Star and Clary also receive a double page spread about his conversion. ^[3]

Several days after the meetings, hate letters were sent to members of the community claiming to be from the "Klu Klux Klan". The misspelling of "Klu" instead of "Ku" caused some to believe that it was a hoax. The letter's claimed that there were over 400 members of the KKK in the Northern Rivers district ^[4]. The A.B.C.'s PM programme also did a story about it ^[5]. The organizer of the meetings was contacted buy the federal police and several media sources including the Sunday programme, The UK Telegraph ^[6], and The Northern Star, prompting him to make a website about the incident. ^[7] Casino has been described in media reports as the KKK capital of Australia and many individuals, including people affiliated with the church, claim to have been victimized by them ^[8]. The church also has a large percentage of Indigenous Australians who attend.

[edit] Church Affiliations

The Lismore Potter's House Church is a member of the 'Christian Fellowship Ministries', which is an international fellowship of 1400 churches in 100 countries. CFM was started in the early '70s by the Pastor of a church Wayman Mitchell in the small town of Prescott, Arizona. The Australian branch of the Potter's House consists of 60 churches. ^[9]