Shadyside Presbyterian Church Gratefully Celebrates 150 Years of Blessings
Shadyside Presbyterian Church celebrates its 150th anniversary in a worship service on World Communion Sunday, October 2, at 10:45 a.m.
Founded in 1866, Shadyside Presbyterian Church carries on a traditional ministry of worship in the Presbyterian/Reformed tradition. While the church’s interior life and worship have been characterized by an uncompromising commitment to excellence in preaching and music, it is the congregation’s demonstrable concern for outreach beyond its walls that has distinguished its service over many years, both locally and globally.
Worship is the centerpiece of the church’s sesquicentennial celebration on Sunday, October 2, beginning at 10:45 a.m. with a prelude for brass, timpani, and organ. The extended service will include music commissioned by the church and composed by Mark A. Anderson, director of music ministry; and the Reverend Dr. Conrad C. Sharps, senior pastor, will preach a homily of celebration for the occasion. The church will welcome the participation of five of its past ministers in its commemoration of World Communion Sunday, an ecumenical liturgical observance which was inaugurated at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in 1933 and today is celebrated around the world, transcending boundaries of denomination, geography, and language.
Illustrating this cross-cultural impact and international interconnectivity, on October 2 the church also welcomes the participation of guests from Shadyside Presbyterian Church’s sister congregation, the Soche Church of Central Africa, Presbyterian, in Malawi, with which Shadyside Presbyterian Church has enjoyed a 20-year relationship.
A representative from a second mission partner, the Neighborhood Academy in Pittsburgh, also will participate in the service. These two partners will receive from Shadyside Presbyterian Church a special offering gift, undertaken to celebrate in a tangible way the church’s core commitment to mission.
The church’s 15-year partnership with the Neighborhood Academy is emblematic of the continuing emphasis on education evident throughout the church’s history. Three years after Shadyside Presbyterian Church’s founding in 1866, its then-pastor, William Trimble Beatty, led his congregation to fund the establishment of Pittsburgh’s first college for women, known today as Chatham University. Dr. Beatty helped administer the institution for a decade. Campus ministry continues today through Shadyside Presbyterian Church on the campuses of both Chatham and Carnegie Mellon University.
At the other end of the educational spectrum, Shadyside Presbyterian Church was, in 1952, among the earliest churches to sponsor a nursery school, which continues to nurture children today through developmentally appropriate curriculum.
Education was central to an innovative ministry partnership formed with Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 2003, when the Reverend Dr. M. Craig Barnes became the Seminary’s first full professor to serve simultaneously as senior pastor of a large church. Until Dr. Barnes was elected president of Princeton Theological Seminary in 2012, this ministry model blessed both church and school and attracted national attention. Dr. Barnes will be among the former ministers returning to Shadyside on October 2.
Innovative initiatives are a recurring theme in the ministry legacy of Shadyside Presbyterian Church. Many of the early members of Shadyside Presbyterian Church were business and community leaders who leant their family names to places and streets in the Pittsburgh region: Aiken, Negley, Pitcairn, Westinghouse, and Heinz. In part, they rose to prominence by being what, today, we call innovators and early adopters. There is not much call for new place names today, but “first” and “pioneering” have characterized much of the church’s ministry and mission throughout its first 150 years.
A classic “early adopter,” the Reverend Dr. Hugh Thomson Kerr, Shadyside’s pastor for 32 years, preached on radio’s first weekly religious broadcast in 1922. Later he delivered the first messages via broadcast radio to explorers at the North and South Poles over KDKA’s powerful short-wave signal. The Shadyside broadcast continued each week, on KDKA, KQV, and several other stations, for more than nine decades.
Today, online visitors can listen to a live streaming audio webcast of the church’s worship service, which will be accessible at www.shadysidepres.org/live on Sunday, October 2.
Following worship on October 2, a special reception will be held in the church’s parish hall for guests to enjoy fellowship and refreshments. In addition, author Timothy C. Engleman will present the new volume of church history published to coincide with the anniversary, and the church’s Chancel Choir will release a new CD with music celebrating the history of Shadyside.
Shadyside Presbyterian Church is centrally located in the heart of Pittsburgh’s university district, just a few blocks away from the campuses of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. The church is situated on the corner of Amberson Avenue and Westminster Place, only one block off Fifth Avenue. The church building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a prime example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. Free on-street parking is available surrounding the church. More information about Shadyside Presbyterian Church is available at www.shadysidepres.org.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.