University of Kwazulu-Natal

Preserving Congregational Histories Encyclopedia Of Opc History

Bonisiwe Shabane
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preserving congregational histories encyclopedia of opc history

Denominations and presbyteries are not the only sources of church history. Your local congregations have their own histories that should be curated and shared. Read the following articles to learn how to preserver your local congregational history. A resource maintained by the Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In the summer of 1936, the Rev. John Davies and his pregnant wife, Hermina, camped for two weeks in an

Dr. Bryan D. Estelle is an Orthodox Presbyterian Church minister who serves as professor of Old Testament at Westminster Seminary In the summer of 1936, the Rev. John Davies and his pregnant wife, Hermina, camped for two weeks in an Dr.

Bryan D. Estelle is an Orthodox Presbyterian Church minister who serves as professor of Old Testament at Westminster Seminary Mary Cummings was born in ChaiRyung, Korea as the youngest child of Missionary William F. Hunt and his second wife, A resource maintained by the Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In the midst of all that clergy are required to do on a day-to-day basis, thinking about preserving their congregation’s history is not usually a priority.

Congregants likewise do not always think about the importance of preserving meeting minutes or other historical artifacts. Here are five quick tips for church’s looking to preserve their history or engage a professional history to help better understand and tell their story. In the church I attended growing up there was a small room, a little bigger than a closet, that housed an old pulpit and a couple old chairs. It also contained a couple of large record books containing old meeting minutes and financial logs. Amidst these historical records and documents were old decorations and ornate candle sticks and other miscellaneous items the church rarely used. It contained all the artifacts and items that the church did not know where else to put.

The church called it the historical room, but my mom like to call it the hysterical room. Getting congregational records organized is the best first step a congregation can make in preserving their history. Meeting Minutes, Sermon Manuscripts, Correspondence and Newsletters, and Committee Records are all important records of a congregation’s history. Getting these together and arranged chronologically can be a significant undertaking. While records from the past ten to twenty years may be stored electronically, consider printing digitized records. Technology changes quickly.

Records preserved on a CD are no longer accessible by many new computers without disk drives. We welcome all researchers, from veterans to those who are just starting out. In that spirit, we offer some general sources introducing Congregational and Christian history as well an orientation to some of our key digital resources. We also offer assistance with research-related questions. Contact us at 617.523.0470 x102 or email us at ref@14beacon.org. The reference staff is happy to help with any questions, but please keep in mind that we limit staff time to approximately 30 minutes per reference request.

If your inquiry requires more then the allotted 30 minutes, we ask that you visit the library or hire an outside researcher. The library is currently open by appointment only. The best historical overview remains John Von Rohr's The Shaping of American Congregationalism, 1620-1957 (Pilgrim Press, 1992), a systematic treatment of theology, polity and worship from the landing of the Pilgrims to the forming... The other standard is Williston Walker's Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, first published in 1893 and most recently reissued by Pilgrim Press in 1991. The seven-volume Living Theological Heritage Series (Pilgrim Press, 1995-2004) is a collection of original documents tracing the history of the Congregational Christian tradition from its first-century roots to the present. All of the documents are framed by interpretive essays and introductions.

The minutes of the National Council of Congregational Churches, formed in 1871, have been digitized through 1923. These provide diverse information on denominational programs, decisions, personalities, and conflicts. The Congregational Library and Archives in Boston has the exciting task of preserving – and helping others to preserve – the history of some of the earliest communities of faith in America. They rescue documents from attics and basements, digitize them, and make them accessible. While their work is unique, it offers clues to how – and why – ordinary congregations need to tend to their own history. We asked Executive Director Margaret Bendroth to tell us more about their project and what the rest of us can learn.

Dr. Bendroth: We are digitizing the records of churches from colonial-era New England, so far mostly Massachusetts but we’re branching out steadily. We dream of the far-off day when our digital collection includes all the available documents from churches in all five New England states. But our immediate goal, beyond just preserving fragile documents, is making them fully accessible on our website. Pretty much by definition, records from colonial-era New England churches are Congregational. During this time, the Puritan churches (later called Congregational) were the main game in town.

We shouldn’t let that mislead us, though. In spite of all the stereotypes of witch-hunting killjoys, those old Puritan churches were in many ways laboratories of participatory democracy. Their records show church members deliberating matters of theology and church discipline, making decisions by consensus, and in some cases, making sure the minister didn’t get too far ahead of himself. Those old documents are a portal into the lives of ordinary people, the kinds of people usually lost to history. A resource maintained by the Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

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