Shining the Light

Shining the Light

Mapletown United Methodist Church

By Colleen Nelson

It’s the kind of little country church that’s within walking distance for many of the parishioners who live in Mapletown, not that walking to church is that fashionable in today’s world of family cars and places to go after services that might include a run to town. On the Sunday that Lori Beth Adams invited me to attend and later, meet her neighbors, the parking lot was full and so was the Mapletown United Methodist Church, filled with a lively assortment of kids, their parents, grand parents and related kith and kin. A photograph of this same congregation in the 1950s hangs on the wall near the front door and many of the children in that photo were back today as happy grandparents, helping keep an eye on the family flock.

“See that little girl with the dark hair, that’s my mom Minda,” Lori Beth Adams tells me later, pointing to a back row. “We all grew up in this church.”

Her son Greer, just turned two, was busy trying to stay in the seat beside me, an impossible proposition no matter how hard he tried. A scattering of little toy trucks were on the pew between us and relatives took turns rounding him up and bringing him back to his seat while the congregation listened to scriptures, passed the silver tray to fund work on the stained glass windows, sang, prayed and sang again.

This is a church whose congregation goes back to frontier times, when the Redstone Circuit was formed in 1784 and Methodist preachers were appointed to Western Pennsylvania. The congregation met outside of town on Whiteley Creek, according to the church history I was given to read after services. Historian L.K. Evans states that Stephen Mapel’s son Benjamin sold some of the family farm to trustees for a church in 1797 but doesn’t say where. Walking and horseback riding to church back then brought parishioners from Greensboro to this original Redstone Circuit preaching point, but as Bishop Asbure wrote in 1803 he was “stiff and sore” from walking down the “rugged, perpetual hills” between Mapletown and Greensboro. By 1820, Greensboro Methodists, tired of trudging up the hill, formed a church of their own in Glassworks and by 1833 the present circuit was established in Mapletown. Services were held in a log cabin school on Whiteley Creek “near the present home of Francis Bigley.”

Today’s church sits on land in town that was deeded to church trustees in 1887 by Mary Minor and “a building was erected shortly thereafter.” I didn’t see any photographs of it hanging on the wall but church history tells us about the money that was raised to build it. The Greensboro Graphic reported on November 11, 1886 that “$1000 of a needed $1600 had been raised for the building of a proposed new church in

Mapletown.” – and that the first pastor to serve in this first church was Reverend John C. Mc- Minn.

By 1919 there was a parsonage and in 1922 work began on the present church. Ten years later, despite the Great Depression, the church was raised up and a basement was added. By 1951 a kitchen was in place as families grew with the times and church suppers became part of the social fabric.

In 1968, the Greensboro flock came back and merged once again with Mapletown. The vote was unanimous.

Lori Beth introduced me to her neighbors after service and bits of the history of Mapletown were offered up for the story I was writing. In the lively portrait I took of the congregation filling the doorway, you can just see the big church bell that sits on a pedestal and gives forth a joyous peal when rocked to life by an energetic young parishioner.

Later I visited Jack and Jean Keener who live in the old town school on Maple Ridge Road and read some of the history Jack has kept on school days before the yellow brick high school was built. Once a two story building with “two up and two down” classrooms, it has been carved down to a one-story residence. Next door is another historic artifact – the teachers dormitory, now a private home as well.

In Mapletown, history is alive and well, old buildings are happily maintained and so is its frontier faith in the “true Christian spirit of brotherhood and fellowship.”

Sunday services start at 11 a.m. and boots and cowboy hats, kids, friends and even a reporter are welcome!