Heritage Presbyterian Church (Founded April 8, 1962)
Sermon by Rev. Caroll Wood (Founding Pastor)
Scripture: 1 Cor. 3:5b-15; Eph. 2:19-22.
40th Anniversary Sunday, April 7, 2002

God's Plant

This morning on this second Sunday in Easter and on this great day of celebration of the 40th anniversary of Heritage Presbyterian Church I bring you greetings from the church where I am now privileged to serve as parish associate in Cincinnati. When they heard that I was coming to help celebrate a 40th anniversary, they said, well, "Bring greetings from a church that has been in existence for 208 years."

My wife and I, indeed, are very grateful for the invitation to come back to Heritage. We have a wonderful treasury of memories of this place and of these people with whom we labored in the Lord in the early days of this church.

I've been very much impressed with all the planning that's been going into this 40th anniversary. The whole year you've been celebrating under the wonderful leadership of Bob Trimble. So we come here now today as ministers of the past, as interims of the past, charter members of the past, and leaders and members of this congregation through the years to celebrate this wonderful occasion.

What shall I title this message this morning? Should it be "A Church Is Born" or should it be "A Vision That's Been Realized," or should it be "A Goodly Heritage" or should it be "Life After 40?" Well, no doubt, each of those titles would be suggestive of some very important things about the life of Heritage Church.

But I choose this morning to echo the words of the apostle Paul, who declared "I planted the seed, others watered the plant, but God made the plant grow." Paul further emphasizes the truth that neither the one who plants nor the one who waters amounts truth, but only God who gives the growth. As the organizing minister and first pastor of Heritage Church, I bear witness to this fundamental truth and I believe the other ministers who are here with us today, and the interims, and all those who have served in this place, will bear testimony to this truth and have it firmly in mind that this is God's plant and God made it grow.

In 1961, I felt the call to become involved in new church development. I was a pastor in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and when I was invited by Rev. Charles Carson from the old Washington city presbytery to come to talk about the possibility of becoming involved in new church development, I did, and I thought that this was my calling and ministry at that particular time. So we came in the middle of 1961 with two young children. That was a time when new church development was a strong emphasis in the presbytery. And, the presbytery had the wisdom, the foresight and the vision to see that around the city of Washington there would be the possibility of a number of new churches being planted. It was in the context of that era of new church development that I felt called to become involved.

The presbytery in its wisdom had purchased this piece of property, eight acres of wooded area and had set it aside as a possibility of a place for a church to be born.

Then it was that I was invited to come and be organizing minister. When I said this to the church in Milwaukee where I was then serving, some of them had difficulty understanding why I would do that. The church there was a strong, well-established church and I was being called to a church that didn't even exist. There was nothing—nothing except the piece of property and a promise and a hope, and the encouragement of the presbytery. I must say, that was a tremendous encouragement.

One of the things that I realized in my ministry here was the significance of the connectional church and the support and encouragement that our brothers and sisters in Christ give us in the presbytery. That was really a significant thing in my experience here, and I hope you experience that in the church now.

When we came we lived in the new house on Crowley Place. That was the manse. It was the focal point for gatherings of people and the focal point for the advisory commission of the committee of the presbytery, composed of people from six different churches in Virginia to provide wonderful counsel and advice in the developmental stage leading to a new church.

The lower area of the manse was the church office and my study. The manse also served as the child care facility for any gatherings we had.

The first task we had to do was to develop an invitation brochure and to call on all the people in Waynewood and adjoining communities and invite them to come to the church that was being formed. After several months, from April to June, on June 4th we began our worship in the Waynewood Elementary School. We had been able to secure the approval of the principal, Bess Grossenbach, to let us use the school facilities—the cafeteria—for our place of worship, and several rooms for sunday-school classes. I must say, Bess Grossenbach was a little reluctant at the beginning, not knowing what this new bunch was going to do to her school building. But, we convinced her that we were going to be good stewards, and it didn't hurt at all to have Kit Stearns on the teaching staff at Waynewood school.

We were able to put a sign out in front of the school saying Heritage United Presbyterian Church is going to meet here. On June the 4th we had our first service in the Waynewood school. We had a custom of calling the cafeteria by a nicer name—we called it a cafetorium. In the cafetorium we put a cloth over an ordinary dining table the children used. We had a marvelous, white, mosaic cross, a celtic cross, which was the focus of our worship throughout that whole period. Behind the table there was a three-fold panel, and beside it was a simple school lectern for a pulpit. That was our worship center. We met there every Sunday for worship, and people increasingly began to come. I remember one time one of the young adults in the community who often drove by when we were having these services, said to me one time, "What's going on in there?" Then I had the opportunity to say to him there's a new church starting there and you and others in the community are very much welcome to come and to share with us. We had to put everything away, of course, after the worship service—everything had to be put into a closet and chairs re-arranged, which the men and women of the church did every Sunday.

In this organizational status of the church we were always impressed with the truth that the church, in essence, is God's people. It's not a building. It's a fellowship of people committed to the Lord Jesus Christ for worship and witness and service and mission. And when people would ask us, "What's going on in there?", we would have opportunity to respond, in essence, with that kind of a statement.

Our initial services of worship in the school building were often assisted by our sister churches in northern Virginia. We sometimes had guest choirs—from the Bush Hill church for example. There were teachers who came from the other churches to help us.

On that first Sunday of worship, June the 4th, we were blessed with Sunday-school teachers from Bush Hill, a choir from John Calvin church, ushers from the Arlington church, coffee hour hosts from Clarendon, a group of families and individuals from Waynewood and adjacent communities, and visitors from other churches were present at the first service, which had been preceded by months and months of planning and prayer. From that first day there was Sunday School; there was child care in the manse; and next to the school parking lot on the edge of the property was a wonderful sign that said:

FUTURE SITE OF
HERITAGE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
ALL ARE WELCOME

People began to volunteer with their time and talents in many ways—in music and teaching and ushering and child care and office work. Speaking of music, I'll never forget one of the young men—I think he was in high school at the time—Duncan Stearns, son of Kit, was often the pianist for our services of worship. Duncan went on to be a concert pianist and is now an organist at a significant church in Philadelphia—the last I heard.

Constantly we encouraged friends and neighbors to come and visit with us, particularly people in the whole Mount Vernon area that did not already have a church home. It was an opportunity, we realized—and I think the people who began to worship with us realized—it was an opportunity to experience being in on something new. Just like the first Christians who met together wherever they could for prayer and worship and study and service. And men and women and young people were invited to experience that basic reality that the church is the fellowship that gives witness to the incarnation and the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ; and that the meaning of life can be found just there in that experience with Christ. During the following months attendance increased slowly but surely by the number of people who felt called by God to accept the challenge and commitment to finally petition the presbytery of Washington city to be organized as a particular church. And so it was that on April the 8th, 1962, the presbytery duly organized this church with 56 charter members, some of whom are here in the front pews this morning. I'll never forget that on that occasion Dr. George Docherty, who was then the pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, preached the sermon, and the Heritage Church children's choir sang "The Hymn To Joy." Dr. Dougherty said, "Never forget that on your first day as a church you sang Beethoven." Since then every time I sing "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee" it has special meaning for me, as I'm sure it does for others here this morning.

After the church was duly organized, and I might say that at the time this was introduced to the presbytery, and you were asked to say what the name of the church was to be—Heritage. (We'd been calling ourselves Heritage from the very beginning for some very good reasons. One, obviously, the geographic, historic locale here, but more importantly, what the word means in the Bible—the people of God.) But, when it was announced in the presbytery that it would be called the Heritage church, somebody didn't understand and popped up and said, "Did you say Heretics?"

It soon became apparent after a while that we would be needing more space—the school was not adequate, nor the manse either, so the presbytery acquired the house at the end of Waynewood, just by the school, as the parish house. We used that for several years. It was a very important place for meetings, session meetings and others, and for young people who came to youth center. After we got into the new building here, that building was sold; but, it served very well during that time.

The expanding program of the church and the steady growth lead to the planning for a church building on this Fort Hunt Road site. Then, pretty soon, the securing of architect Milton Grigg. At the very beginning the building committee was established and was chaired very ably by Krieger Henderson, and began the study that was necessary in preparation for building. I must say, I was very much impressed with the way the building committee thought through what the church is. They thought through what reformed worship means and how it ought to be expressed in a building. They came up with a document that is very significant—"The Program For Christian Witness." It was that basic principle that guided the architect and all of us as we began to go into this building program.

The basic principle was that the priority in a building is worship, and that ought to be central to the building and everything else—education and fellowship and other things lead out from worship. So it was that the emphasis on the word of God and worship was put into bricks, mortar and wood. The basic concept was that this place of worship would be the center, with the focus on the word of God, spoken and read from the pulpit; and a large, free-standing communion table would be very visible, along with a baptismal font signifying the enacted word of God with God's people. So that was the way this was developed. One of the somewhat unique features—not entirely unique—was the point that the congregation was to be thought as the main choir; and the vested choir to be the supportive, helping, leading choir from the back of the congregation.

After the funds were raised—some $100,000 which was the estimate of the first unit—the ground breaking occurred on a very chilly day in January. It was a very moving, significant time when the people who had been worshiping in the Waynewood school processed out with this beautiful, white, celtic cross I spoke of earlier, leading the procession. When they came to the property—mind you it was in January and it had been snowing and melting and was muddy—flattened cardboard and boards were put down on a path that led from the parking lot of the school over to where the ground-breaking was to occur. We all processed over that trail. Then a symbolic ground-breaking occurred at this site right here.

The building was dedicated in November of 1965 over a period of ten days when various aspects of the life of congregation were lifted up and celebrated with Thanksgiving. It was a series of celebrated events dedicating this new building. So after three and a half years in the school cafetorium, Heritage finally had its own church home.

What was said at the time—that season of dedication and thanksgiving—still speaks to us today. "We rejoice that God has brought us to this time of dedication and thanksgiving, but we remind ourselves that this beautiful building is not an end in itself; but rather an instrument through which Christ's people worship and study and are equipped for Christian ministry and mission." Therefore, let us not take pride so much in the accomplishment of this building, but to rededicate our lives to Christ who has called us together, and to submit ourselves to the guidance and the power of the holy spirit as we seek to fulfill our mission.

Well, God's plant has grown and flourished and bore much fruit over this first forty years. Some of us were used to plant the seed. Many others, like Apollos in the scripture, watered and nourished this plant. The various ministers and interims and others who have served here all had a very significant influence in the caring and the nurturing of God's plant. But above all God was present, empowering by his spirit this plant to grow. We thank and praise God for God's mighty power in birthing the church, for leading many to nourish it in its continuing strong presence, and leading it into the future.

So as the apostle Paul declared in the Ephesians passage: You are God's people, members of the family of God, build on the foundation which is Christ Jesus himself. He is the one who holds the whole building together and makes it grow into a sacred temple in the Lord. In whom, with him, "You too are being built together, with all others, into a house where God lives through his Spirit." (Eph. 2:19-22)

Yes, you have a goodly heritage. And you can continually pray with the psalmist, "O save thy people and bless thy heritage; be thou their shepherd and lead them forever." (Psalm 28:9)

Amen.

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