COVID-Adapted Celebration
PORTERSVILLE — “We're just trying to figure it out,” said the Rev. Dana Opp, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Portersville, describing how the church has begun to celebrate its bicentennial year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Sunday, the church opened its schedule of bicentennial events with special speaker Dr. Jonathan Watt of Geneva College at the 11 a.m. service and as guest of a special luncheon that followed.
Watt's discussion of First Corinthians 9 was streamed on the church's Facebook page, another innovation brought about by the pandemic.
“We've put a lot of time and effort in upgrading our audio and video,” Opp said. “Our livestreaming is getting pretty good right now on Facebook.”
The 11 a.m. Sunday service is seen in-person by about 70 of the 172-member congregation and by about another 45 simultaneously on the Facebook page. Opp estimates that over the course of a week another 200 people will have watched the service.
“We leave it up for about 30 days,” said Opp, adding the streaming nature of the service has led to some adjustments.
“I am at the time of my life where I like to walk a bit. I'm not tied to the pulpit when I give my sermon,” he said. “They've had to put some blue tape down, so that I know to stay in camera range.”
Facebook streaming Sunday services is a leap from the church's beginnings in 1814 when Christians in the Portersville area started meeting in Thompson McCosh's cabinet shop.The Presbyterian Church of Portersville was organized by the then Butler Presbytery on Oct. 13, 1820.Since then, the church has preached God's word through the Civil War, the industrial revolution, the Great Depression, the Spanish Flu epidemic and two world wars, Opp said.The COVID-19 pandemic is just the latest “speed bump,” he said.The present church was constructed between 1841 and 1856 using bricks made on site.Opp said the church underwent an extensive renovation from 1927 to 1929 that included construction of a bell tower.In 1964, the fellowship hall was built next to the church.In 2009, the church left the Presbyterian Church USA for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church over theological differences, said Opp, who has been the pastor for almost 24 years. He's the 19th pastor in the church's history.He credit's the church's longevity to the “faithfulness of the members.”“They're faithful to God and close to the Scriptures. They give well to mission work,” he said. “They have a great outreach to families with young children.“This was one of the first churches to have vacation Bible school in the 1940s,” he said.“They still manage these things really well,” he added.He likened the church to a healthy family, one that has a core that is stable and reliable.Guest speaker Watt, chairman of the Department of Biblical Studies, Ministries and Philosophy at Geneva College where Opp works for the degree completion program, agreed with Opp's assessment of church members.“I can describe them as a very thoughtful, considerate and good-natured group of people,” Watt said.Watt, who's been friends with Opp for 20 years, said his address to the congregation was titled “Free for All.”“It was built around Paul saying being free of obligations makes him free to serve God and people,” Watt said.Opp said Watt's appearance was just the first of continuing events in the coming months celebrating the church's bicentennial leading up to the closing celebration set for Oct. 10, 2021.Upcoming plans include a service honoring Portersville first responders tentatively set Nov. 15 and a candlelight Christmas Eve service that may be split into two services to avoid one large crowd.“I'm hoping restrictions start to ease by Easter so we can have a traditional Easter service at the church,” Opp said.Asked what the church faces going into its next 200 years, Opp said the biggest challenge is a society that thinks the church is irrelevant.“People don't realize it (that) their concepts of right and wrong are biblically inspired,” he said. “If you begin untying yourself from the dock that stabilizes you, you will find yourself adrift before you know it.”
