Edgewood's 'little church that could' celebrates 100 years

(I sent this out as a media release about the centennial celebration at Edgewood Presbyterian Church, our family’s church in Homewood, Al. The story behind this church is so interesting, I wanted to post on my blog in honor of the official celebration of our 100^th birthday.)

Edgewood Presbyterian Church celebrates its centennial this month by reviving a symbol of its past while building a foundation for its future.

The congregation first met under a tent in what would become Homewood, Al., at the corner of Oxmoor Road and Peerless Avenue on Sept. 23, 1912. Church leadership chose the name Edgewood Presbyterian Church on Oct. 12, 1912, according to a church history edited by Melissa Tate, a retired Samford University professor.

The Centennial Celebration includes reinstalling a church bell that called residents to worship from 1916 until 1952, when Edgewood’s original wooden sanctuary and bell tower were condemned and torn down. The bell was brought out of storage for the church’s 95^th anniversary and restored this month to a new tower in time for the 100^th. For the official celebation today, members will ring the bell before entering the sanctuary.

Hanging the old bell in the new bell tower for centennial

Members also are launching a $250,000 capital campaign to replace the 50-year-old air conditioning units and make other physical improvements, upgrade technology, update landscaping and retire debt.

Known for its huge stained-glass window depicting Jesus, tiny Edgewood Presbyterian church is a prominent landmark on Oxmoor Road, Homewood’s street of churches. Many know Edgewood as the final station in the annual “Way of the Cross” procession on Good Friday.

“A lot of people mention they have seen Edgewood and noticed our Christ window, but never have been inside,” said Rev. Sid Burgess, the church’s current and longest-serving pastor. “This is an opportunity for folks to see us from the inside, as well.”

Giant stained-glass window
is an Edgewood landmark

Edgewood Presbyterian Church formed when members of Oak Grove Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Rosedale Cumberland Presbyterian Church congregation merged. They built a wooden sanctuary, installing a bell that had been donated to the Rosewood church in 1898.

Hard financial times soon forced Edgewood to affiliate with several denominations. But the transition back started in 1925, when some affiliates split off to join a new congregation down Oxmoor Road, now known as Dawson Memorial Baptist Church. Another group left Edgewood the next year to help form nearby Trinity United Methodist Church.

Again affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, Edgewood’s congregation expanded rapidly before and after World War II. But a rift led to a split in 1950, when the pastor was called to a church in Tennessee and 184 of Edgewood’s 519 members left.

Termites also were gnawing away at the sanctuary and bell tower (below), which were condemned as Edgewood marked its 40^th anniversary. Services would be held in the education building for the next 16 years.

 

A session vote in 1962 in support of racial integration led to another membership split as opponents left Edgewood. The remaining congregants celebrated the dedication of the current sanctuary in 1967, but they could not quite raise enough money for a replacement bell tower.

Today’s Edgewood congregation was hewn from the Presbyterian Church debate to allow women to be ordained and gay people to be members. The opposition at Edgewood, including the minister and about half the congregation, left in 1978 to form a new church.

 

The remaining core of 85 members voted in Edgewood’s first women elders, Nell Barron, Estelle O. Wilbanks and Irma Kennedy. They, along with Carolun Hammill and Amy Duckworth are credited with holding Edgewood together as it sifted through a series of pastors during the 1980s.

Then Burgess – a 20-year veteran of radio and television in the Birmingham area before graduating the seminary – accepted a shared call to Edgewood and another church. His first service at Edgewood, on Nov. 4, 1990, was attended by 25 people.

But the congregation quickly grew under Burgess’ dynamic leadership, resulting in a grant by the Independent Presbyterian Church Foundation in late 1991 that allowed Edgewood to hire Burgess full-time and add key part-time staff.

Edgewood was one of the first area churches to establish a Web site. Under Burgess’ leadership, it has expanded its ministries and commitment to racial, social, environmental, stewardship and local causes.

The church, for example, tithes to the First Light Shelter for Women. The capital campaign will provide an additional tithe to the Living River presbytery camp and conference center on the Cahaba River.

Now with roughly 250 members, Edgewood Presbyterian Church is a demographically and socioeconomically diverse congregation that reflects the PCUSA slogan, “Open Hearted, Open Minded.”