Today in the Mission Yearbook - Synod of the Sun network aims to help confront and dismantle racism

About 40 people in four states seek to heed ‘God’s ongoing call to love and justice’

November 30, 2020

Members of the Synod of the Sun’s Network for Dismantling Racism during a June 4 video meeting. (Contributed photo)

Some symptoms of racism might be obliterated with a wrecking ball approach, but a new Synod of the Sun network aims to help dismantle the structure and proactively remember grim events of the past, including the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.

“If the hope and goal is for everyone to be equal, then the hard work that we are doing will be undoing, dismantling that structure and building anew,” said Rev. Jennifer Hardin, 31, associate pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and a member of the synod network that she helped name.

Activity in the Synod’s Network for Dismantling Racism has accelerated since its formation in January. Members have built a list of 10 goals with a mission to heed “God’s ongoing call to love and justice … to (see) the atrocities of systemic racial injustice” and to “equip and engage for transformation throughout society.”

Valerie Young, Synod Leader and Stated Clerk, lived in the Tulsa area several years ago, but had never heard of the Race Massacre. She learned about it during a conversation with Rev. Jerrod Lowry, an African American pastor who is now the general presbyter for Coastal Carolina Presbytery, and learned more on a synod leaders’ trip to Montgomery, Alabama.

“We don’t want confrontation,” Young said. “We want to be gently prodded. That is what has been ingrained in us — it’s part of white privilege. Now it’s time for white people to get uncomfortable.”

Young drafted Commissioned Pastor Kristy Rodgers for synod leadership and then asked her to start the network. Rodgers had been on a slow simmer over racism and decided that she could not “stand on the sidelines any longer.”

Now she has read three books describing the destruction and massacre of a thriving community in a 35-block area of Tulsa often referred to as “America’s Black Wall Street.” As a teen she moved from a small Wisconsin town of 1,300 people to Tulsa’s Memorial High School with an enrollment of 1,300 students.

The synod’s Network for Dismantling Racism (NDR) is still defining itself in weekly meetings facilitated by Rodgers on a video conferencing service. About 40 members have signed on to confront racism in the synod’s geography of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.

“I’ve observed lots of silent complacency,” said Rev. Dr. Ron Hankins, pastor of First Presbyterian in Odessa, Texas, during a recent meeting. “Zero risk means zero change.”

Hankins, an African American man from New Jersey, took the call in Odessa after a 15- year pastorate in Baltimore.

Young drafted Hankins to join Rodgers. Both are 57-year-old military veterans. Both are struck deeply by the Tulsa Massacre. Hankins sees the same “cloud of dark rage and anger deep within the human heart” motivating actions a century ago as well as the racist actions in 2020. Younger Presbyterians see the same concern.

“As a full-time college student in Tulsa, I see systemic racism and its consequences scattered throughout my community,” said Katharine Nipp, 21, a network member who is grateful the synod is taking a role in racial justice.

The NDR will host two educational events annually and facilitate antiracism training throughout the synod’s 11 presbyteries. The network aims to “identify and reject practices and policies that protect a racist status quo in our churches and communities.”

The workgroups of the NDR cover advocacy and activism, education, resources, and training in addition to planning the centennial commemoration in Tulsa next June.

The commemoration will be coordinated among Oklahoma’s three presbyteries and avoid duplication of other events led by the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission. The NDR will host an educational event to continue uncomfortable conversations and actions in the name of the gospel.

 Shane Whisler for the Synod of the Sun, Special to Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:  

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Andrea Trautwein, Office of the General Assembly
Tonia Trice, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray:

Good and gracious God, thank you for the unending opportunities to share what we have and learn again and again that your grace is sufficient. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - COVID-19 helping to fuel global hunger

‘How do you tell a hungry man to sit at home?’

November 29, 2020

Paul Raja Rao Valaperla hands a prize to a woman at an event celebrating rural women farmers. (Photo by Valery Nodem)

With the coronavirus continuing to infect scores of people daily worldwide, the number of people experiencing acute hunger is expected to skyrocket globally, and some partners of the Presbyterian Hunger Program say the economic ramifications of the pandemic already are hurting the ability of people around the globe to feed themselves and their families.

In India, “hunger is really rampant,” partially because of multiple lockdowns that have occurred due to COVID-19, said Paul Raja Rao Valaperla,  who chairs Chethana, the PHP Joining Hands network in that country. “We have a lot of malnourishment,” especially among women and children.

Around the world, the number of people facing acute food insecurity could rise to 265 million in 2020, a near doubling from 2019’s estimated 135 million people, according to a recent projection from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

The projection was released in conjunction with the latest Global Report on Food Crises, a project of WFP and 15 other humanitarian and development partners.

In the report’s foreword, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said, “The number of people battling acute hunger and suffering from malnutrition is on the rise yet again. … And the upheaval that has been set in motion by the COVID-19 pandemic may push even more families and communities into deeper distress.”

Calling for action, Guterres went on to say, “We must redouble our efforts to fight hunger and malnutrition.”

This is an issue that should be on everyone’s radar, even as the United States grapples with problems of its own, said Valery Nodem, PHP’s international associate for hunger concerns.

“When we talk about loving our neighbors, it’s recognizing when our neighbors are in trouble as we are ourselves,” he said. “The world has gone through a lot of crises and we can only survive this crisis if we remember that we need to work together.”

Loving our neighbors and thinking about our neighbors around the world “would be the best start,” Nodem said.

As lockdowns are put in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus, people know various parts of the world — including India, Nigeria and Haiti — find themselves in a precarious position. Many people depend on being able to go out each day to make money, often in the informal sector, and to secure food and other necessities.

“How do you tell a hungry man to sit at home? How do you tell him to observe social distancing when he has like 20 mouths to feed? He must go out (in order) to eat,” said Peter M. Egwudah, program coordinator for PHP partner CISCOPE in Nigeria.

Likewise in Haiti, where people also have been advised to stay in, “if they don’t go out to have something to eat, they will die,” said Fabienne Jean, who coordinates FONDAMA, the Joining Hands network in Haiti.

The Rev. Dr. Laurie Kraus, director of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA), said, “What we are seeing now, in the midst of the pandemic, is theologically, an apocalypse— an uncovering or laying bare of inequities and unaddressed systemic problems that contribute to food insecurity and increase the vulnerability of peoples. The crisis precipitated by the pandemic has deepened that vulnerability and pushed many communities perilously closer to famine.”

As part of its international response to pandemic, PDA has awarded nearly $1 million in grants in 56 countries. Many of the grants are being used for water, sanitation and hygiene projects to prevent the spread of COVID-19 — but some address food insecurity.

“PDA’s release of emergency COVID grants, placed in the hands of local leaders and agencies, is intended to support short-term efforts to alleviate hunger,” Kraus said. “We have in these efforts paid particular attention to areas experiencing famine or chronic food insecurity. Later interventions, as the pandemic continues and as resources become available, will focus on continuing our collaborative work with the Presbyterian Hunger Program, addressing famine in current and emerging locations with strategies to build long-term food security.”

Unlike in the United States, where many people can receive stimulus checks and unemployment benefits to get by during hard times, many developing countries do not have a strong safety net to support people when COVID-19 and other stressors hit, Nodem said.

Darla Carter, Communications Associate, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Julie Tonini, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Joel Townsend, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray:

God of miracles and mystery, take our loaves of bread to feed the hungry. May your Holy Spirit, O God, grow in us the ability to be Christ’s body, building a world in which all enjoy and participate in the abundance of your creation. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Prayer vigil serves as on-ramp for Christians on a journey of discernment

Louisville nonprofits host interfaith event to help dismantle structural racism

November 28, 2020

Chandra Irvin of Interfaith Paths to Peace opens a prayer vigil held at a Louisville park June 7. (Photo by Mark Hebert)

Count on a former architect to see the flaws in existing structures and work tirelessly and faithfully on ways to redesign them.

Such was the compelling draw for the Rev. Dwain Lee, pastor of Springdale Presbyterian Church, when an invitation to endorse an interfaith prayer vigil in Louisville’s Central Park came across his virtual desk.

“This was one of those once-in-a-generation moments where people across a wide variety of faith traditions could converge around this one topic, dismantling structural racism, on which we all agree,” said Lee, who operated his own architectural firm for 20 years before pursuing a call to ordained ministry. “We have to get a handle on racism and white supremacy.”

The June 7 event, which was hosted by two local nonprofit organizations, Interfaith Paths to Peace and Sowers of Justice Network, was organized to seek “racial justice for our city and a rededication of our faith values to work for a more just society,” especially in the wake of the recent killings in Louisville of Breonna Taylor by police and David McAtee by the Kentucky National Guard.

Although the vigil’s organizers had originally planned to lead the attendees around the park, stopping periodically to meditate and pray, because attendance at the event far exceeded the organizers’ expectations, everyone instead stood in place.

At one point, participants recalled the May 25 killing of George Floyd in excruciating detail.

“Perhaps the most powerful part of the gathering was the moment of silence for the length of time that George Floyd was being suffocated,” Lee said. “During that entire time, just imagining Floyd in agony — gasping, begging to breathe, during that entire time — was gut-wrenching. In the church, we often think about time in terms of hundreds, thousands of years; and we think about the kin-dom of God spanning the ages. At the vigil, I was reminded that eternity could be eight minutes and 46 seconds.”

Lee, who said that he has felt for many years “a particular draw to social justice issues,” also knew that not everyone in the 275-member congregation was in the same place.

“Springdale is like any other Presbyterian church,” he said. “There is a broad spectrum of where folks are in their ability to discuss racism and white privilege. Knowing that this was a faith-based event — and knowing that many people are on the same page and understand the issues, while others are in a different place — made this a good on-ramp for people in that latter stage of discernment.”

Although Lee’s interest in inclusiveness in both church and society emerged from his own particularity as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, it extends to advocating for inclusivity across a broad spectrum of issues.

“It is personally important to me — and not just me — if I am a person in ministry to find an appropriate way to speak to the congregation in such a way that they are challenged without being threatened or terrified,” he said.

Since the prayer vigil, Lee has been working with the church’s Mission Committee and its session to build on the momentum of the prayer vigil by offering a variety of congregational activities, including a  conversation around the documentary, “Race: The Power of an Illusion.” He hopes that such opportunities for study and dialogue will lay the groundwork for “more involvement in concrete things.” Springdale already accepted the PC(USA)’s Matthew 25 invitation.

“There are a few things we can do,” he said. “We can provide water and power bars and other supplies to demonstrators. We can show up to keep this moving forward.”

 Emily Enders Odom, Communications Specialist, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Doug Tilton, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Mason Todd, Office of the General Assembly

Amazing God, surprise us with new possibilities we deem impossible, and remind us that what is possible is limited only by your power. As we journey into the future, help us to discover that we are truly better together. Amen.

Medical Missions Live | MBF

Integrating Faith and Medicine - Reenergizing Medical Missions

On Tuesday, December 1, we are honored to be able to meet with our very good friend and colleague Dr. Jim Ritchie, a medical missionary at Chogoria Mission Hospital in Kenya.   Dr. Ritchie shared recently how important it is in medical missions to have a solid biblical understanding of healing, illness and death. Equal to this as a health worker is the need to grasp the biblical dynamic between the role of Christian medics and God's sovereign role over all. Both of these things are essential as we pray forward through sustainable health care.    Jim has extensive global medicine experience, including serving at Chogoria Mission Hospital in rural Kenya through World Gospel Mission, since 2014. He has a deep interest in the theology of healing, illness and death, along with preventing moral injury and burnout among medical missionaries. While in Kenya he helped start a Christian Family Medicine residency program and has just graduated the second class of residents. Important to our discussion is that during his tenure the hospital has seen a renewed dedication to its core spiritual mission.   Also in his background is 25 years of service in the U.S. Navy. He was deployed twice to the war in Afghanistan, at the beginning in 2001 and during the Surge in 2009/10. A frequent speaker at the Pentagon, he was Emergency Medicine Residency director for seven years, and on the teaching faculty for 12 years, with numerous teaching and mentoring awards. An interesting bit of personal trivia about Jim is that two of his former residents have become Physician to the President, one was Physician to Congress and one is now Medical Officer of the Marine Corps, Rear Admiral Jim Hancock.    This is a discussion you do not want to miss. Join us on Tuesday night, December 1, 2020, at 8 pm Eastern / 7 pm Central / 5 pm Pacific. Please have your questions ready for us. We look forward to you connecting with us live via Zoom or on Facebook Live. If you choose to view with Zoom you will need to pay attention to both the login and the passcode included for you below.   Blessings   E. Andrew Mayo  President and CEO  When: December 1, 2020 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada) Topic: Integrating Faith and Medicine - Reenergizing Medical Missions Please click the link below to join the webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87358181342?pwd=bGdJVzU4RUpndW8zSEJkb3FES1V3Zz09 Passcode: 758636 Or Telephone: Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location): US: +1 346 248 7799  or +1 669 900 6833  or +1 253 215 8782  or +1 312 626 6799  or +1 929 205 6099  or +1 301 715 8592  Webinar ID: 812 0840 4053 International numbers available: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kctw4J73X Click Here to Visit the MBF Website

Copyright © 2020 Medical Benevolence Foundation, All rights reserved. We send special reports to all partners who have chosen to walk alongside us in medical missions. Our mailing address is: Medical Benevolence Foundation 9555 W. Sam Houston Parkway South Suite 170 Houston, TX 77099

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Celebrating Darrell Guder, a pioneer in mission theology

Longtime educator is the winner of the Excellence in Theological Education Award

November 27, 2020

The Rev. Dr. Darrell Guder

From an early age, the Rev. Dr. Darrell Guder knew he was going into ministry. In fact, in grammar school he envisioned himself in the mission field in the South Pacific.

“It was very romantic,” he joked recently. “I had the island all picked out.”

His childhood dream was never realized. But that turned out to be very fortunate for many generations of theologians, scholars and seminarians — and for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in general.

Throughout his 50 years in educational ministry, Guder taught, authored books and championed missional theology. He is the Henry Winters Luce Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology Emeritus and one of the founders of the Center for Church Planting and revitalization at Princeton Theological Seminary.

For his many years of work for the church, Guder is receiving the Excellence in Theological Education Award this year from the Committee on Theological Education with the PC(USA).

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Guder did not have an opportunity to receive his award in person at the General Assembly, which was held virtually.

Guder recently spoke to the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty, senior director for Theological Education Funds Development at the Presbyterian Foundation in a Facebook Live conversation about his call, his work and this award.

From his home in Seattle where he and his wife have recently retired, Guder said that he began to focus on missiology and the service and foundation of leadership for the church while teaching at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in the 1990s.

The text he was teaching from was “Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission,” by David Bosch. And, at the time, Guder was involved in a nearly formed network of scholars across the country who were discussing the idea of how the Church becomes missional.

It was at that point, at age 51, that he said it became clear that “everything I had ever done was for equipping leadership for the church.”

Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth had a huge impact on Guder. While on sabbatical, Guder discovered the “electrifying theme” that the vocation of the church is witness and he began to explore that idea.

Hinson-Hasty asked why witness matters now.

“The challenge that we’re dealing with as we come out of almost 20 centuries of Christendom is the fact that the whole Christian movement in the West, as I think, bought into a compromised and reductionist gospel,” Guder said, “which focuses on individual salvation and the Church as an institution that manages that salvation.

“What gets lost is what was at the heart of the early Christian movement, which was the vocation of the Church as the witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the equipping of every follower of Christ to join the apostolate, to be a sent one, to be a part of the good news for the world.”

The theological task is to reclaim the centrality of mission, mission as witness, Guder said.

If mission is a part of our vocabulary it tends to be marginal, he said. We tend to keep mission as “one of the several line items of the Church,” Guder said.

Theologians such as Barth and Bosch believe mission defines both the purpose and the action of the Church and “it is all wrapped up in this biblical focus upon witness, our vocation to be Christ’s witnesses,” Guder explained.

Guder, who has taught at Whitworth University, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Columbia Theological Seminary, and Princeton Theological Seminary, said Scripture, of course, plays a vital role in missional theology.

Hinson-Hasty mentioned preaching stories in Romans and Paul’s letters where the people are not inwardly focused, but outwardly focused.

“The gathered life of the Church is for the sent life,” said Guder, quoting Barth. Barth talks about the life of the Church inhaling and exhaling, he said.

It’s “inhaling the vocation, the equipping the spirit, the vision of the gospel, in order in the world to exhale it. And every Christian can do it,” Guder said. “Every Christian’s vocation is witness.”

“That’s the rhythm of the Church,” Guder said.

A video tribute to Guder can be found on the Theological Education Fund Facebook page.

 Sally Scherer, Writer and Communications Consultant for the Presbyterian Foundation

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Mark Thomson, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Kathryn Threadgill, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Loving God, may we practice the Golden Rule, remembering that you are with us always. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - A Thanksgiving like no other

Consider writing a letter to yourself to commemorate the time

November 26, 2020

A couple years ago, at our family Thanksgiving gathering at my sister’s house in Virginia, I brought a variety of blank notecards, envelopes and stamps.

I asked each person in the family — young and old — to write a note to themselves and to include anything they wanted: joys and concerns, thoughts about our get-together, goals for the year ahead — anything at all. I explained that I would keep the notes for a year before dropping them in the mail. “It will be a surprise when you receive your note back,” I said. “You’ll recognize the handwriting and remember you wrote the note to yourself last Thanksgiving.”

I wish I could tell you that everyone gladly participated without grumbling, but I can’t say that. One person never found time to sit and write, and another just sealed up a blank notecard to appease me. Some, however, completed the task thoughtfully.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought we might each do this little exercise on our own or within our own household. Instead of mailing the note a year later, just write on the envelope: Read on Nov. 25, 2021. It will be like a mini time capsule of a year like no other and your hopes and dreams for the future.

Here’s what a member of my family said about the note written in 2018 and opened in 2019:

When I wrote the note, I was dealing with an upsetting circumstance that I was trying to deal with biblically. I felt misunderstood and that nobody was taking my perspective. I felt nobody wanted to listen to me, and I felt frustrated. I was trying to leave things in God’s hand, so I was memorizing 1 Peter 2:23: “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”

When I received the note in the mail a year later, I remembered why I wrote what I did. As I read it, the note served as a reminder of my struggle that continued, but through the year as I learned to recall the verse when I became angry, I claimed it as my verse. I was learning to appropriate the fact that I do not always have to be understood and fight to be right. Jesus dealt with the worst misunderstanding and continues to be misunderstood and will continue to be misunderstood. Although the issue had not disappeared from my life, it felt less raw. I had learned to leave my concerns with God because he will take care of me no matter what.

If the note idea doesn’t work for you, think about starting a scrapbook that you write in on special occasions like holidays. My husband found one that his family started in 1998, and it has been a joy for him to read more than two decades later. Whatever you do, let this be a Thanksgiving to remember.

And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. —2 Corinthians 9:8

Tammy Warren, Communications Associate, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for:  

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Erica Thomasson, Presbyterian Foundation
Edward Thompson, Board of Pensions

Let us pray:

God our Creator and sustainer, we give you thanks for your unfailing love that never ends and from which we can never ever be separated. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - ‘A virtual choir of international peacemakers’

A 38-voice global choir is one of several ways the Peacemaking Program is virtually bringing the global community together

November 25, 2020

A choir of 38 International Peacemakers were gathered by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program to share a rendition of the hymn “This is My Song.” (Screen shot)

Beth Mueller got a note from a man who saw the virtual choir of international peacemakers video she created for the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and had a question.

“He wanted to know how we got all those people from around the world to sing at the same time on Zoom,” Mueller said, laughing.

It’s not quite that easy, but all the more rewarding.

Mueller, worship arts director at Shepherd of the Hills Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, learned the painstaking task of assembling virtual choir videos out of necessity. As in churches across the country, the COVID-19 pandemic had put all worship online for Shepherd, but the members of the choir still wanted to join their voices in song. Mueller shared one of her virtual choir videos with Carl Horton, coordinator of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, and he had an idea: What if they gathered a group of the program’s previous International Peacemakers, participants in its travel-study seminars and other trips, and others associated with the program to create a “virtual choir of international peacemakers,” as Horton put it?

By the time they arrived at the idea, Mueller had created several of these pieces, which have a fairly complicated production process. Anyone who has tried to sing “Happy Birthday” at a virtual birthday party knows that a bunch of people singing at once on a Zoom call sounds horrendous. It takes a bit more work to make all those voices come together as beautifully online as they do in person.

The actual process starts with singers recording themselves singing while listening to a sample track. That way, everyone is on the same tempo and the recordings and videos can be synchronized. Then singers send their video to Mueller, who separates the video and audio tracks. She sends the audio to Lucy Jordan, a member of the church band, who puts together a satisfying blend of voices — “I can ask her to make it sound like we’re in a cathedral, and she does it,” Mueller says — and she assembles the video. Then they sync the two together.

The hymn they chose was “This is My Song,” a hymn of peace set to the Jean Sibelius work “Finlandia.” Mueller had already found that hymns were easier to do than choral arrangements for these projects, so they went with the version in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) “Glory to God” hymnal — it’s No. 340.

Horton emailed participants large attachments, including music for every vocal part plus a score with them all together and a PDF of the hymnal version, directions for recording the video, and the sample track to sing to. Horton said he was worried the PC(USA) email system wouldn’t let him send such a large message. All singers were asked to record a video of themselves singing the melody, and singers who were capable of singing harmony were asked to record a track singing their vocal part — soprano, alto, tenor or bass — as well.

Mueller opted to create a “build” version of the hymn, starting with a few singers in the first verse building to all 38 singers.

“That way, we could highlight all the different voices and accents we had,” Mueller said.

The “This is My Song” video, which can be downloaded for use in virtual church services, started as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But it ended up being released just as the United States was beginning a national reckoning with systemic racism in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

“Part of the reason Carl and I did it was this is such a weird moment in history and in the world, and to be able to offer something that speaks to peace and unity, to offer something tangible, felt like a really important thing to do,” Mueller said. “The song is simple and beautiful … and I choke up every time I play it, and I spent 50 hours making the thing.

“It’s incredibly moving to have voices from all over the world singing a song of peace. It is really a powerful message: all the voices from all these places speaking to peace and unity in God.”

Rich Copley, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Andrew Thomas, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Ashlee Thomas, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray:

Gracious God, we give thanks that you call us to share Christ’s message of salvation and liberation with all your people. Help us to encourage and enhance each other’s efforts, just as you multiply the gifts we share. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - After accident, ‘Surprise!’ from the pulpit pleases congregation members

The Old Meeting House in Frontenac, Missouri, will be ready for worshipers post-pandemic

November 24, 2020

The historic Old Meeting House, the original Old Des Peres Presbyterian Church in Frontenac, Missouri, was damaged by an automobile in an Oct. 3, 2019 accident. (Contributed photo)

When the Rev. Carol DeVaughn welcomed the congregation of Faith Des Peres Presbyterian Church to virtual worship on a recent Sunday, those watching could hardly believe what they were seeing.

The interim pastor was standing in the Old Meeting House, a one-room stone church constructed in 1834 — which is also a significant landmark in the abolitionist movement.

“Grace to you and peace in the name of our risen Lord Jesus Christ,” she said. “And, surprise!”

The “surprise!” came because just seven months before the Memorial Day weekend service, the historic church in Frontenac, Missouri, had been extensively damaged when an automobile — traveling between 60 and 70 mph, according to police — ran into the side of the church near the pulpit.

St. Louis’s KSDK-TV reported that all that was left at the scene after the early morning Oct. 3, 2019 accident was “rubble and stones scattered all over the ground, broken glass and car parts still lying in the grass.”

“It left a hole 20 feet wide, by 10 feet tall,” said Tony Harris, the restoration project manager who works for Belfor Property Restoration.

“If it hadn’t been a historic church, our engineers might have recommended it be torn down.”

The original Old Des Peres Presbyterian Church, nicknamed the Old Meeting House, was built by a group of settlers who came by buckboard and wagon from the East and South, the church’s website states.

The little rock church was constructed on three acres of land donated by three families, each giving one acre. It was one of the first Presbyterian churches organized west of the Mississippi River.

“We can seat 60 comfortably there,” Barbara Abbett said of the historic church, where she has been a member for about 45 years and currently serves as clerk of session. “There’s no heat in it, so we generally only worship there during the summer.”

The Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy was among the early ministers of the church. An abolitionist, he denounced slavery from his pulpit and in his newspaper, The St. Louis Observer.

Eventually he moved to Alton, Illinois, where he led the College Avenue Presbyterian Church and founded a newspaper called the Alton Observer, which regularly featured his anti-slavery columns. He was shot and killed in 1837 by a mob in Alton during an attack to destroy Lovejoy’s press and abolitionist materials.

The original land donors of the church stipulated that the congregation set aside part of the land for a cemetery. It has a designated section where slaves are buried in unmarked graves. In their honor, a stone memorial has been placed in the southeast corner of the cemetery as testimony to the grievous reality of their lives, the website states.

Folklore tells that Yankee soldiers nicknamed the church the Old Stone Meeting House during the Civil War. Considering that slave owners originally contributed land for the church, the church was rumored to be a well-known stop along the Underground Railroad.

The Old Meeting House served as the main location of the church until the 1960s, when a new larger church was built nearby.

In the 1970s, the church restored the old stone building. Those efforts were rewarded in 1978, when the church was added to the National Register of Historic Places, states the church history on its website.

In the early 1990s, the congregations of Faith Presbyterian and Des Peres Presbyterian churches merged. Faith Des Peres Presbyterian Church is now located about a mile from the Old Meeting House.

Before restoration of the historic structure could begin, it had to be stabilized. An emergency restoration team was on site less than 12 hours after the accident, Abbett said.

Next, restoration professionals assessed the damage and began making repairs.

“After the accident, we couldn’t imagine what would happen, how it would be restored,” Abbett said. “But it’s such a treasure to us. And the community feels that way, too.”

A carpenter for 25 years, Harris said he was pleased with the final results.

Abbett said the repair bills for the restoration are between $125,000 and $150,000. Some of that cost may be recouped from the car owner’s insurance company, she said.

Sally Scherer, Writer and Communications Consultant for the Presbyterian Foundation

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Nancy Taylor, Office of the General Assembly
Tom Taylor, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray:

Gracious God, you call us to be Christ incarnate. We are to be the compassionate heart and hands of Christ. We are the loaves and the fishes that will give hope and life during these challenging times. Amen.