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Saturday Evening, August 20

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The forming of a committee and the serious planning of this event began on March 31, with each committee member choosing the area in which they wanted to serve. I chose History, which put me on an interesting journey for the next five-and-a-half months.

I did a serious search of our history which has its roots in Germany in the early 1700s when Alexander Mack began to seriously follow the teachings of Jesus. This led me to create a seven-page White Oak Church Timeline.

During my study of our history since The Brethren (Tunker’s) came to the United States, near Philadelphia in 1719, I became interested in knowing how our congregation fit into the establishment of other early congregations. It was difficult to find some details and I had to read a lot of old books. As far as I can tell our congregation was the 10th Brethren Church to be established in the United States. We, as well as many other congregations began meeting in the 1720s and 1730s. Most of those meetings were in houses, barns and schools.

Our congregation was officially established in 1772.

When our friend Gloria Burkholder heard about our celebration, she loaned us a photo of her house probably taken in the 1850s. She understands that worship services were held in her house before the nearby Kreider Meetinghouse was built in 1859 – before the Civil War.

I cropped her photo so you can see the people in her yard.

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Now back to the celebration at our church near Penryn, PA.

One of the outside indications that something was happening at our church was the three large busses in our parking lot on Friday evening. Later there were four.

The other outside indicator was a tent, which was set up for overflow people during Sunday lunch.

On Saturday afternoon, after putting the final touches on the display items, I went to see what was happening in the kitchen. A few deacons and deacon’s wives were putting the finishing touches to Sunday’s meal.

The committee and a few others were invited to a light supper in the sewing room before the doors opened at 4:00 PM.

I took photos of the displays I set up – before people began arriving. This is the 3-table display of the beginnings of our congregations – including dress, meeting houses, dishes and a lantern. I was grateful that Jere and Kristen still had lots of black tablecloths from Austin and Jana’s wedding.

The first set of information was from our beginnings in Germany.

An old table-top pulpit was given by Marv and Sue. It came from our old Graybill Meetinghouse and was the first pulpit over which he preached.

Clothing from parents, grandparents and great grandparents.

There was a time when our congregations (which began in horse and buggy days) owned five churches. There was a scrapbook for each one and some of the unique details related to the building.

Behind the old pulpit was another coat area that I filled with old books, clothing and old song books. There was a time before the 1900s when singing was done without notes (a kind of monotone singsong). Notice the smallest book. It has words to songs, without notes. In the early 1900s a matching book of songs (same song number) was published. It is to the right of the small one.

There were also some district books in that display area. When our congregation was part of the Church of the Brethren, we were with the Atlantic Northeast District.

This row of four tables was on the right side of the main entrance to our sanctuary. There were scrapbooks about our preachers, baptizing, Bible School, Sunday School, Ladies Fellowship and the early days of the Maine Ministry.

Old Sunday School chairs, a few pictures, signs that our choristers used prior to technology.

The lighted picture was a reminder of how we used to save up our red and blue Sunday School tickets to buy one. Someone still had a stack of tickets. (Notice them in front of the picture.) There were also several church and congregation cookbooks and a book written by Orpha Graybill.

There were programs at each entry door.

Behind that table, in another small coat rack area, were some interesting items – most from our friends John and Lois. The trundle rope bed came out of the attic at the Kreider Meetinghouse when people who came from a distance by horse and buggy slept overnight.

John’s great grandmother made the quilt. The doll was Lois’ when she was a girl. The lamp was used in the Graybill Meetinghouse. Many of the old items in the displays came from an auction when we consolidated into one church building in 1981. The chair was one of their five Sunday School chairs.

The table was called the preacher’s table and was used when we had prayer meetings in homes. The baby basket is mine.

I brought this baby basket to show what it was like to have a straw tick mattress. It was a bag sewed to fit the baby bed or adult bed then stuffed with feathers or straw.

Ladies’ Sewing Circle items were placed in the Narthex just below the balcony steps. The treadle sewing machine was loaned to us by Darlene who bought it at the church sale.

There was interesting information in their old notebooks. They recorded every penny that was spent and donated.

Across the Narthex – under the other balcony steps – was the Love Feast and Communion setup. There was a display of many items that were used in previous days.

Back in the day, when there was Second Day Love Feast – people came back for a morning sermon, lunch and an afternoon sermon. These are some of the food items that were brought: raisin pie, red beets, pickles and molasses cookies. Second Day Love Feast is why people stayed overnight.

There were also scrapbooks behind the last bench in the sanctuary and in front of the first row of chairs in the overflow area.

These tables featured our church softball teams, youth group, picnics, Christmas events and even Zoom church.

Across the sanctuary to the right, also behind the last bench and before the overflow we featured mission work, refugee care and work projects – long-term and short term.

When the doors opened at 4:00 PM, many people came to look over the scrapbooks and artifacts.

Promptly at 5:00 PM one of our ministers, Jon Cassel (left) prayed for Jeff Bach who gave us a good overview of how and why The Church of the Brethren was established in Germany in the early years. He is a local church historian with connections to Elizabethtown College.

Part 2 (tomorrow evening) will take place at the Kreider Meetinghouse which our congregation still owns as an historical site.