Glad Tidings

The new structure was a small one and a half story brick veneer building with a 350 seat sanctuary on the first floor and a parish hall on the second.  It was dedicated on November 18, 1945, with Superintendent J.T. Stanley presiding and Dr. Ernest M. Holliday, General Secretary of the Church Extension Board of the Congregational Church, preaching the sermon.  The Memorial Bell, sole relic of the Old Church, was placed on the front lawn and dedicated to the thirty-two original members and the seven incorporators.
                In 1958, under Dr. Nicholas Hood, a major renovation of the structure, inside and out, was done at considerable expense and provided many needed improvements.  The church site was enlarged by buying two adjoining houses on North Tonti Street; later five small apartments were acquired for rental purposes.  During the following pastorate, that of Rev. George A. Williams, a Wicks organ was bought for $16,000, and the interior of the Sanctuary took on the appearance it has today.
                The Rev. Henderson H. Dunn started the first day-care center for Negro children in New Orleans in 1911 in the basement rooms of the Old Church to meet the needs of the community.  When the church moved in 1934, the New Orleans Colored Day Nursery, as it was called, went to the vacant Daniel Hand School of Straight College, 118 North Rocheblave Street. Renamed Isabella Hume Child Center and, by that time, an agency of the Community Chest, it offered nursery, kindergarten and primary training to children from two to seven years of age.  When the Hand School was sold by Dillard University in 1951, the Center was relocated at the Church on the North Tonti Street properties.
                The new Educational Building would provide for the needs of the Sunday School and house Hume Center.  It was dedicated at the Centennial observance on Sunday, April 23, 1972, at which time Rev. Roland Pantermuehl, D.D., President of the South Central Conference United Church of Christ, was the guest speaker.
                Always a small congregation with a membership that probably never exceeded 400 active adults, Central Church has been a power for good in the community, motivated by a deep sense of commitment.  This may be attributed, in large measure, to the high type of leadership given by its pastors – all well educated and everyone, without exception, holding a baccalaureate and a graduate degree in theology.

          Throughout the past 60 years, St. Matthew has remained focused on worship and spiritual growth, while also changing to meet the desires and needs of the congregation. Today we face further challenges and opportunities and transitions as a congregation.  

For more than one hundred years, Central has enjoyed a close association with its church related school, Straight University and its successor, Dillard University.  The first five ministers were professors of theology at Straight (1872-1890) and Dr. Holmes (1929-1949) was professor of Philosophy and Religion at Straight and Dillard for more than twenty-five years until his retirement in 1957.  Miss Isabella Hume, associate pastor (1892-1896), (for whom the Child Center was named) and Rev. Virgil Mayne (1929) also taught at Straight.  Dr. Walter S. Alexander, third pastor (1876-1884) was president of the University for seven of those years.
                The Rev. M.C. Cole, Dr. Alexander and the Rev. George W. Bothwell, second, third and fourth pastors respectively were white as were Miss Hume and the Rev. Mayne.
                Five members entered the ministry:  James E. Smith, ordained 1892; Homer McEwen, 1943; Andrew J. Young, Jr. 1955; J. Knighton Stanley, 1962; and Archie Allen, 1965.  All but Dr. McEwen were ordained at Central.
                Six members have been honored for their dedicated service to the community and to Negro education. The Orleans Parish School Board named schools for Mrs. Florence E. Chester, Miss Mary D. Coghill, the Rev. Henderson Dunn and Dr. L.B. Landry, while Dillard University named a women’s dormitory for Miss Fannie C. Williams and the new Health and Physical Science Hall for its former president, Dr. Albert W. Dent. (Since the original writing of this history a school was named for Miss Fannie C. Williams.)
                Central has carried three denominational names: Congregational, Congregational Christian (1931) and United Church of Christ (1957).  It is an active member of the New Orleans Association and the South Central Conference of the United Church of Christ and of the Greater New Orleans Federation of Churches.  The church holds a life membership in the NAACP.
                The closing words of an earlier Statement of Faith seem singularly fitting at this time.  “Depending, as did our fathers, upon the continued guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth, we work and pray for the transformation of the world into the kingdom of God and the life everlasting.”  With such a faith, pastor and people expect to meet the challenge of the future.

A Little about New Member Marsha Quick

I was born and raised in suburban Detroit (GO RED WINGS!), the youngest of three girls born to a family of educators.  Mom taught speech and later was a librarian, while Dad taught special ed. and later business supervision at the local community college.  I decided about age 9 to follow in their footsteps and be a middle school teacher (that alone makes me sound sort of crazy!), but it turns out that God had different plans for me.  I first felt the call to ministry at age 12, which led me to some extensive consideration.  After much prayer, I decided at age 19, feeling God’s blessing, to continue with my initial plan to prepare to become an educator while remaining involved in the church on a secular level.  Rather like having my cake and eating it, too J

God came calling again in August 2002, at a time when I was without a church home.  My mother’s family has been Presbyterian for over 300 years, while my father’s mother attended a Congregational church near their home in Detroit.  Dad joined the Presbyterian Church when he and Mom married, and I did as well as a teenager.  In May 2002, I officially resigned my membership in a large church in Tucson, due to theological differences with the leadership at the time.  Thirteen weeks later, God came knocking at my door a second time.  As I did the first time, I spent extensive time in prayer and meditation, and felt that this time professional ministry was my goal.  Thirteen months later, I left my job, my home and my family in Arizona and moved 2,000 miles across country to attend seminary in South Chicago, a city I came to love so much that it’s like a second home to me. 

Only a year into my studies, I began having serious issues with the polity that is currently enforced in the Presbyterian Church, USA.   I felt that I could work it out, and in fact was promoted to Candidate for Ordination in April 2006, shortly before I graduated from seminary.  However, a year later, it was decided by mutual decision between my ministry committee and me to withdraw my candidacy.  I have spent the time since in serious preparation for ministry on a personal level.  At the end of the first portion of my year’s residency as a chaplain at Ochsner Medical Center, I realized what was missing for me: I am a member of the Reformed Tradition at heart, but as an avid seeker of social justice for all, I find that the Presbyterian Church, USA is not where I am called to serve.  Instead, I will be seeking ordination through the United Church of Christ to parish ministry. 

From the very start, I have felt more welcome at Central St. Matthew than any church I’ve ever attended; the hospitality and fellowship in evidence among everyone is heartening.  Honestly, it felt as if I’d come home the first Sunday I worshipped with everyone.  I’m excited by all the possibilities I see for the congregation in the months to come under new leadership, and look forward to assisting, as a fellow congregant, in the continued transitional period.

Bind Us Together

   By Karen Wulff

The worship service is almost at a close.  Now comes, for me, the most emotional part of the worship hour.  As we gather in a circle around the sanctuary, sometimes a small, tightly knit group and other Sundays a wide, meandering wave of congregants, I am taken by the intimacy of holding hands and looking into one another’s faces.  Faces so hopeful, caring and committed, and faces that seem to ask, “Can we do this?  Can we create something new and exciting here at Central/St. Matthew?”

It took me awhile to learn the song and for weeks I held my crib sheet from the bulletin as I gingerly sang along, “Bind us together, Lord, bind us together with cords…”  I pictured luxurious silken cords wrapping around each of us, keeping us intertwined.  Or is it chords?  Chords of music and the joy of singing that we experience in the choir under Beth’s skillful and loving direction is, perhaps, what binds us.

“There is only one God, there is only one King.”  We feel wrapped in His arms to go out and face the world for another week.  I find the touch of my neighbor so reassuring; its memory stays with me.  What a comfort this song has become, a perfect entree to the benediction, to the week ahead.  Bind us together in Love.