270TH ANNIVERSARY
Christ Reformed Church at Indian Creek plans a celebration
FRANCONIA >> After 270 years, Peter Gerhart is coming back to Christ Reformed Church at Indian Creek.
OK, it’s not really him, but one of his descendants, the Rev. Robert Gerhart, will portray Peter during the church’s 270th anniversary celebration at its 10:15 a.m. morning worship service Sunday, Oct. 30.
Nobody knows exactly when the church began, but the diary of the Rev. Michael Schlatter states that on Thursday, Oct. 20, 1746, he preached in a “newly constructed wood frame building to 46 men and their families.” “It’s basically the first documented meeting,” said the Rev. Scott Nice, senior pastor of the church at Cowpath and Church roads in Franconia. “That’s why that date is our official birthday.”
Even before that, though, the families had been meeting in
their homes, Nice said. It’s just not known how long that had been going on.
Peter Gerhart was one of the men at the 1746 meeting, said Martha Yoder, who said she is the fourth or fifth generation in her family to attend the church.
During the meeting, a decision was made to contribute to the salary of a minister who would be shared with another local congregation, thus officially starting the church.
Following the Oct. 30 morning service, there will be an open house from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. It will include refreshments and displays from the church’s history. Members of the public are invited to the service and/ or the open house.
“We have the old spittoon that was by the pulpit in the old days,” said Merrill Yoder, Martha’s husband.
Other archival items include a shoe shine kit.
“A lot of people walked from Telford on dirt roads, so their shoes got dusty,” Merrill Yoder said.
Other items on display include pews used at the church over the years, one of which — a plain pine bench with no back — comes from the original 1746 building.
“We’ve got all kinds of pictures of things that took place here at the church over the years,” Merrill Yoder said.
“We have a pulpit from the 1826 church that’s on display all the time,” said Jerry DeLong, another of the Historical and Outreach Committee members organizing the anniversary celebration.
There have been five church buildings on the site, Martha Yoder said.
“The first two were wooden buildings. The next two were stone buildings,” Merrill Yoder said.
The current one, built in 1879, with later additions, is made of brick.
The previous buildings were in 1746, 1754, 1776 and 1826.
There was initially also a school house, which was removed when the current building was constructed, Martha Yoder said.
The church bell, which goes back to the 1880s, is still rung every Sunday morning, DeLong said.
“They used to ring that bell whenever someone died,” Martha Yoder said.
Although he didn’t know it until after he began pastoring at Christ Reformed, Nice said, John Neis, one of his ancestors, was part
of the original group that started the church and sold part of his farm, then donated the money to the church to help pay for the church building.
Other local churches started as an outgrowth from Christ Reformed include Jerusalem Reformed Church in 1800, St. Peter’s Reformed Church in 1805, Ridge Valley Reformed Church in 1854, ImmanuelLeidy’s Reformed Church in 1858, St. Andrew’s Reformed Church in 1866, St. Paul’s Reformed Church in 1871, Zwingli Reformed Church in 1887 and Trinity Reformed Church in 1899, according to a letter sent to those congregations telling them about the Oct. 30 celebration.
In addition to Gerhart speaking at the morning service, the Rev. Ron Hamilton, conference minister of the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference, will be coming from St. Paul, Minnesota, to bring a word of greeting, Nice said.
Christ Reformed has been part of the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference since 2001, he said.
“We began as a German Reformed congregation,” Nice said.
The congregation’s denominational affiliation later became Evangelical & Reformed Church, then United Church of Christ before becoming part of CCCC, he said.
The name of the church has never changed, though, Martha Yoder said.
“Our title has always been Christ Reformed Church at Indian Creek,” she said. “That’s what our charter was.”
Plans are already beginning for five years from now when a 275th anniversary will be held, Nice said.
“We’re looking forward to many more years of gospel ministry in the Indian Valley,” he said.