2007 Scottdale Mennonite

2007  Scottdale Mennonite church merger, Charles Shenk and pastors, showing up, the old Kingview, Lawrence O. Gainey,  Gene Herr,  a spa weekend, natural cures, The Met’s “War and Peace.”

During my life-time, the two Mennonite congregations and Mennonite publishing (MPH) were closely related at Scottdale, and when the 2002 publishing melt-down occurred with down-sizing, the churches, especially the pastors and elders, also felt the pain. Members had lost their jobs and the retirees some benefits. Meanwhile, retired workers moved to other states and regions, reducing church attendance.

At the Kingview congregation attendance sometimes dipped to 50 which became problematic for congregational singing and offering programs such as Sunday school, and the Scottdale congregation had similar issues. One of the most frequent questions I had during those years was how is it going in the local church? My answer was always, surprisingly well. By 2007, the two congregations had merged into one Scottdale Mennonite Church, and had moved to becoming a community-based rather than an MPH institutional-based congregation.

I’ll explain. The biggest surprise was the fairly easy church merger, given that small congregations which refuse to merge are the norm here in Western Pennsylvania whether many little Methodist meetings in the Scottdale area or Mennonite congregations in Johnstown. Although a few members wanted to keep small separate congregations and move to lay and volunteer leadership, very soon a consensus developed to join the two congregations, the only question being which meetinghouse and choosing the leadership. We alternated in meeting at one location and then the other for several years, and decided to meet at the Scottdale what was often called Market Street.

This decision was probably based on the Scottdale congregation bringing slightly more members to the vote than Kingview, but a decision had to be made and we only lost a few members in the process. The biggest loss during the merger was my friend Winifred Erb Paul, an elderly and strong-willed grandmother who became alienated during the process, hence we also lost her long-suffering husband Milford and her children.     

In any case, by 2007 there was one Scottdale congregation, good pastoral leadership with Conrad and Donna Mast, a regular Sunday morning attendance of about 100, strong congregational singing and regular Sunday school, worship and outreach. In a Christian confessional sense, one gives all the gratefulness to God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In a historical sense, one gives much of the credit to the leadership during our publishing crisis, decline and final closing. During the crisis Charles Shenk, former director of the Provident bookstores and business leader in Scottdale, was the pastor of the Scottdale Church and helped the members, standing alongside them with their pain, conflict and suffering, but never entering into a cause of pretending to fix the publishing disaster and losses.

Shenk’s business background gave him credibility in helping congregational members understand that Mennonite Publishing House would need to make painful but appropriate economic decisions. Whether he agreed with MPH decisions or not, he wisely did not use his office to interfere with MPH decisions. He did what all good pastors do, he tried to be a pastor to all his members, both the healthy and the wounded.

Charlie Shenk made another contribution; he was retiring as pastor at Scottdale Mennonite, hence easing any debate of choosing the pastor(s) for the combined congregations. The Kingview pastors Donna and Conrad Mast were chosen, and led the merged congregation toward becoming a more community and regionally-oriented church, no longer institutionally tied to MPH. Conrad had grown up in a congregation in Springfield, Ohio, which had such a mission ethos, and Donna was good as a counselor. Gloria was a member of the church council during these merger talks and her conciliatory attitude was helpful for the merged council to succeed.    

My own role was to stay out of the way because of the publishing pains of 2002 and 2003; I could not be in leadership without being a polarizing figure. I resigned all my congregational positions, except as sexton at the Alte Menist cemetery, thinking the dead would not hold anything against me. Even on the cemetery committee, I remember asking the church office not to list me, so for a few years it was James Lederach, Maynard Brubaker, and “others.” 

By 2005, I accepted taking the junior high Sunday school class which no one wanted to do. But this assignment became an unusual blessing with bright kids such as Grace Weaver and the Don (may he rest in peace) and Jane Rittenhouse daughter Christa. The latter had lost her father, and even though we seldom mentioned it, I always felt we were in a small guild of the surviving wounded that year. It was actually an enjoyable class junior high boys and girls. 

By 2006, I was asked to join the Scottdale Mennonite Church Council for a three-year term, somewhat to my surprise. Time does heal. I had one other project during these years which was to promote an adult Bible study class so that my friend James Lederach could lead and use his scholastic talents. This project ended in failure, however, and Lederach eventually stopped attending our church altogether. I think the main reason I wanted the church to succeed was that I owed so much to it for my family, heritage and even vocation; in short, I’m a confessing Christian and a Mennonite and that means the discipline of church community.

And as a youth, I learned that sometimes the church member’s greatest contribution can be to live Christian, at least try to, for six days and simply show up on Sundays. My goal was now to be a traditional member such as I had seen among the farmers and entrepreneurs in the Pleasant View congregation in Holmes County, Ohio. I always admired these sober-looking men and women who worked hard during the week and then on Sunday came to meeting where they sat (generally on the same bench), sang in tune, said little, and slept often. Meanwhile, a new generation came to Scottdale Mennonite such as the Catholic Saint Vincent professor Chris McMahon who gave stimulating Sunday school Bible lectures which many enjoyed. And women such as Jane Rittenhouse became active as elders, and some young families from the community came.   

The Kingview outreach had been multi-faceted. I went to the Graft-Jacquillard Funeral Home to visit the family of Lawrence O. Gainey who died at age 77 on September 4, 2007. Lawrence Gainey was one of my ties to the old (pre-1970s) Kingview as a mission outreach with Gene Herr as pastor. For years, I would go to Wise’s Restaurant and find Gainey sitting at the bar. Gainey was thin, handsome, and friendly, and invariably, would ask me how Gene Herr (1932-2012) was doing. I had never even met Herr, but no matter to Gainey. Herr had been the high-octane Mennonite denominational youth minister who left town three decades ago. Herr also had a strong faith at work outreach with local people, and he and Gainey had become close friends and stayed in touch.

I believe the only time Gainey attended Kingview was one time when Ivan Moon invited Morning Star, the African-American church, to our men’s prayer breakfast. Gainey had a pension from the Korean War and often had a young child, a nephew or neighborhood kid under his care. Around this time, I met Gene for the first time when he and Mary Herr did a  end-of-career pilgrimage with a Scottdale reception; parents who were young people decades ago showed up with their kids and grandkids; it was quite a tribute to Gene’s ministry.   

For Gloria’s birthday that year, we took a Nemacolin Woodlands weekend for a Thermal Mineral Kur, advertised as the European Spa Experience. It was my first and last visit to this kind of spa. The masseuse whom I somehow imagined might be some German fraulein turned out to be a portly woman from West Virginia, a female Joe Hardy. My greatest desire was to leave about half way through the ordeal. But I didn’t because during the mineral waters, algae, mud, oils, and herbs, and detoxifying, I had heard too much of my masseuse’s sad life story. I had pity on her and even admired her for trying to make a living and support her children.

I’m still quite positive about natural cures like summer swimming in Liz and Ralph Hernley's pond with turtles or Paul Conrad for company. Gloria and I one time visited in the waters at Berkley Springs to good effect, I believe. And I visited a hot springs in Israel (by the Lake Tiberius), and in Peru I had a hot spring on the way up to Machu Picchu. Our son Jakob on the last day of his life had visited the waters and rocks of Youghiogheny River in Connellsville, a bittersweet memory. My biggest natural cures came in my youth, of course, from the waters of the Doughty Creek where our father Andrew took us sometimes, and many warm summer afternoons in the Salt Creek near Holmesville.  

By winter, I was reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace again, and the day after Christmas, Gloria and I went to the Sergei Prokofiev “War and Peace” at the Metropolitan Opera.  Samuel Ramey sang the bass role of the Field Marshall Kutuzov, and Elizabeth and her friend Rachel Smith went along too. Our kids were making major decisions that year; while in New York, Elizabeth was pondering whether to take a long-term Mennonite Central Committee assignment or continue teaching at Mt. Lebanon. Meanwhile, Hannah and Anson and the grandkids moved to Wooster, Ohio.

This chapter comes from my memory and personal files and journal from the period.