PC(USA) congregation celebrates 350 years of serving its Long Island community
First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, New York, pulls out all the stops — especially on its historic organ
LOUISVILLE — First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, New York celebrated its 350th anniversary on Sunday the right way — with worship and thanksgiving, by looking back and looking ahead — and by inviting people who’d helped minister to the faith community on the North Shore of Long Island to return and remember.
“It doesn’t take a large church to have a strong ministry,” said the Rev. Dr. Karen Crawford, who was called to serve the church three years ago. “It takes strong relationships and a strong faith.”
In addition to celebrating its 350th birthday on Sunday, First Presbyterian Church also marked its 200th year in the same building. The church is blessed with New England style box pews and a central, lifted pulpit. “We have no stained glass,” Crawford told Presbyterian News Service. “Our velvet pew cushions are stuffed with horsehair.” The sanctuary has changed very little in 200 years, “although we do have heat and, more recently, air conditioning,” Crawford said.
In 1909, the present pipe organ was purchased. In those days, it operated by air, manually pumped into a goat skin bellows by a long-handled lever mechanism. The air supply was motorized in 1916. “We still use this organ,” Crawford said, and on Sunday, it was on full display in the capable hands and feet of Dr. Pablo Lavandera, especially during the “Ode to Joy” postlude. Watch the 85-minute worship service here. The service starts at 15:20.
Several friends of the church stopped by on Sunday to express their appreciation for centuries of faithful witness.
“This church defines in many ways the history of Suffolk County,” said Ed Romaine, the county executive. Before the current sanctuary was constructed and dedicated in 1825, its predecessor had been occupied by British soldiers during the Revolutionary War. “This church stands as an institution of faith, a place where people can gather and pray,” Romaine said.
Thalia Olaya, Suffolk County representative for Gov. Kathy Hochul, said the church “has stood as a beacon of faith, love and service, welcoming generations and extending a helping hand far beyond these doors.”
In a letter, the Rev. Jihyun Oh, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Executive Director of the Interim Unified Agency, said that “not only have you been a Presbyterian presence in the community, but more importantly, you have been an enduring witness to the abundant love of God. As you gather to celebrate this remarkable anniversary, I pray that your sense of call will be renewed and strengthened.”
The Rev. Dr. SanDawna Gaulman Ashley brought greetings from the Synod of the Northeast, which stretches from New Jersey to Maine and includes 962 congregations. “What must it be like to sit in a building where there has been 200 years of ministry? I am curious about the minds of those first leaders who dreamed of a church,” she said. “Church, do not stop dreaming. We need dreamers today. Our prayers are with you as you continue your ministry.”
The Rev. Kate Jones Calone, executive presbyter and stated clerk of the Presbytery of Long Island, first heard God’s call to ministry as a member of the Smithtown church, “a church that sent me into ministry with its blessing,” she said. “I think about the saints who had the vision to lay the foundation for this building, who fed and loved their neighbors, who laughed, cried and prayed together.”
“I see all of you who testify to the love of God in this corner of God’s good Creation,” she said. “God has done marvelous things and is moving still, stirring up visions for the future that we can glimpse through our prayers and discernment.”
“We are excited by what’s to come in the next 350 years,” Jones Calone said.
Sunday’s service featured three liturgists, music by the church’s Handbell Choir and Sanctuary Choir, thoughtful liturgy and Crawford’s inspiring sermon, “Embracing Our History, Living our Faith,” based on Matthew 5:1-14 and selections from 1 Corinthians 3:5-17.
Crawford said the church doesn’t know the exact date “or even the season” that the church was organized in a meeting house in 1675, but historians are pretty sure it was that year, a mere 55 years after Pilgrims arrived on Plymouth Rock. The first Presbyterian General Assembly wouldn’t be held until more than a century had passed, in 1789.
The church called the Rev. Daniel Taylor, its first resident minister, in 1712. Taylor took on a second job as the town clerk.
During the British occupation, troops helped themselves to 6,396 feet of lumber from Smithtown’s meeting house and the fencing and horse sheds on the property. The minister at the time, the Rev. Joshua Hartt, whom Crawford called “an outspoken patriot,” was fired upon by a British soldier during a worship service. On several occasions, Hartt was arrested and placed in British prisons.
By 1797, the church was struggling. Session records said the congregation was “destitute of a pastor and … in a deranged and broken situation,” said Crawford, quoting from J. Richard Mehalick’s “Church and Community: 1675-1975, the Story of the First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, New York.” The presbytery advised the divided church to draw up a covenant that each member would sign, and each member signed.
In 1823, the congregation voted to build a new sanctuary. Congregants waited two years after the present sanctuary was completed in 1825 in order to hold the initial worship service there with the church ledger clear of debt.
Today, “we give thanks for all Christ’s followers who came before us, who gave of their time, treasures and talents — from all that they had, all that they were, and all that they would become,” Crawford said. “May we never forget that it’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of the process, but God who makes things grow. May we be forever grateful to the foundation of the spiritual building already laid for us all: Jesus Christ.”
“Dear friends, may we leap like a deer over every obstacle and weather every storm like an oak tree,” Crawford said. “May we never forget where we came from — a little wooden meeting house on the rise of a hill off a dirt wagon path, where Moriches and Nissequogue River roads intersect. May we embrace our history but never get stuck in the past.”
“May we forgive one another and dwell in peace during times of uncomfortable transitions and uncertainty,” she said, touching on the historic arc the church has traced over the centuries. “May we lean into our future with courage, hope, faith, and God’s grace without any second-guessing, no looking back with regrets. May we remember that we are not the building, no matter how precious it is to us.” Instead, “we are God’s house, a holy temple, and servants of our Master Lord.”
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