Professor returns to Portersville church roots
PORTERSVILLE — It will be a homecoming for the special speaker at Sunday's Presbyterian Church of Portersville's worship service.
Dr. C. Scott Shidemantle, professor of biblical studies and coordinator of the Bible Core at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, grew up in Portersville, attended the church as a child and credits the church's teachings and its leadership for setting him on the path that led to his present position.
“I grew up in Portersville,” said Shidemantle, the son of Jim and Donna Shidemantle. “My parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were all from Portersville. They came over in the 1840s from Germany.”
“I was baptized at Mountville Presbyterian Church, but I started here when I was 4 years old. This was my dad's family church,” he said.
“I grew up in this church in the youth ministry here. Ralph Phillips, the youth minister, had a big impact on my life,” Shidemantle said.
He went to Slippery Rock University, where he served as a youth director before attending the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston, where he earned his master of divinity degree.
Shidemantle said he then went to Princeton Theological Seminary to further his studies before attending Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he earned a Ph.D. in divinity.
Shidemantle is an ordained ruling elder. He cannot marry or baptize people or serve Communion, but he can carry out the other functions of a church pastor.
He joined the faculty at Geneva College in 1997.
While his wife, Wendy Shidemantle, a professor of Spanish at Geneva College, and his two sons, John, 16 and Luke, 14, live in Beaver Falls, Shidemantle's father, 85, still lives in Portersville.
He has led 10 study tours to Israel since 2000 and is scheduled to return as a visiting professor at Jerusalem University College in Israel from January through May 2022.
He defined his trips not as pilgrimages, but rather centered on biblical archaeology.
He credits his work as a youth minister at the Presbyterian Church of Portersville with setting him on his academic path.
“Ralph Phillips is the youth pastor and had a big impact on my life,” Shidemantle said.
“When I was at Slippery Rock in the summer times, I ran a weekly youth group meeting at the church. During the school year, I ran a Sunday night youth group,” he said. “I found out I really didn't know much.”
The Rev. Dana Opp, Portersville pastor for the past 24 years, remembered Shidemantle being on his side when he tried to update the church's music soon after Opp arrived.
“We wanted to have newer music, not give up the old hymns. We presented it to the church,” Opp said.
Opp said when the church scheduled a series of special events and speakers to mark the church going into its 202nd year, he thought of his friend to be the final special speaker Sunday.
“I'm the wrap-up. I'm supposed to be talking about the challenges of the Christian church,” said Shidemantle of the 11 a.m. worship service followed by a 12:30 p.m. dinner in the church's fellowship hall.
Shidemantle said he was glad to return to the Presbyterian Church of Portersville.
He said it was filled with wonderful people who had an impact on his life.
