Vantage - Columbia Theological Seminary

Looking Back with Thanksgiving

and Forward with Hope

by John T. McCrea ’49

Approaching my 85th birthday in excellent health and with an agenda of projects to be completed (Deus Volenti!), I find myself drawn to the past, to my history, as well as to my future. Two journeys have been planned, one just completed and one pending.

The first was to South Florida for the first week in May. Two church anniversaries in that vicinity came on the same weekend: Shenandoah Presbyterian Church, in Miami, Florida, and Lake Osborne Church, in Lake Worth. The second is a trip this summer to Atlanta, where my ministry began.

Shenandoah Presbyterian Church

On May 1, 1927, Daniel Iverson (about the Class of 1913) was founding pastor of Shenandoah Presbyterian Church in Miami. I was there then, age four, with my family. We lived a block from the church’s first building, an old rustic dance hall.

Daniel’s youngest son, Bill Iverson ’52, recently called together many old-timers to celebrate the 80^th anniversary of the church and Daniel Iverson’s ministry. With the congregation no longer there, several hundred of us gathered for worship in the sanctuary, now occupied by a Hispanic congregation dedicated to carrying on the same message and mission.

More than a hundred have gone out from Shenandoah into the ministry or mission service, including Ned Iverson ’42 and at least ten who were Columbia students at the same time in the early 1950s. Those present for the celebration included Phil Esty ’53 and Pierre Dubose, Jr. ’54, whose father, Pierre, Sr. (c. ’17), had been pastor of the only other PCUS church in Miami 80 years ago.

My brother, Ruling Elder Sloan McCrea, age 94 and a charter member, was present on the front row. He served also as a trustee of Columbia Seminary for 12 years.

In 1926, while briefly at First church, Orlando, Dan Iverson had written “Spirit of the Living God, Fall Fresh [now A-Fresh] on Me.”

Lake Osborne Presbyterian Church

Lake Osborne Church was celebrating their 50^th anniversary. In the summer of 1956 Ryan Wood ’25, pastor of Memorial church, West Palm Beach, had asked me to come to Lake Worth to begin a new congregation as a mission of the Memorial church. We were organized on May 5, 1957, with Dan Iverson preaching the sermon, and Elder Sloan McCrea charging the new pastor.

Russ Toms ’51 followed me there five years later. The current pastor, following Toms in 1971, is Lynn Downing ’66. Deacon James Halstead ’68 was one of many who entered Christian service from Lake Osborne. A “granddaughter” of that congregation is Elizabeth Parker ’04, now serving a church in Nebraska.

For our 50^th, we worshipped and celebrated, as we sang our anniversary theme, “Our God Our Help in Ages Past, Our Hope for Years to Come.”

Atlanta

Returning from military service following WWII, I entered Columbia in the fall of 1946. We lived in the only dormitory at the time, until small “pre-fab” apartments could be constructed for the many veterans and their families.

During the summer between my middle and senior year, I served Salem Church near Lithonia. Actually, three students rotated among three country churches in the area. During my senior year, I served Glen Haven Church on Covington Highway, Decatur.

Upon graduation in May 1949, I accepted a call to serve the Glen Haven and Salem churches together. I was ordained at Glen Haven, June 5, 1949, and remained there for several years. Later, two young men went from the small Salem parish to Columbia Seminary: Herb Bailey ’58 and John Park ’80.

Now, nearly 60 years after my time, neither congregation remains. But I shall arrange a “reunion” with those wonderful folks—themselves also young adults at the time—and we shall recall with joy and thanksgiving the blessed fellowship we shared back then. Together we shall talk of the present, and we shall look to the future in shared hope and thanksgiving!

And then—I shall “drop in” to pay one more visit to Columbia Seminary and marvel at the changes of the past 60 years!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow! And praise Him for a future where hope is a certainty!

John McCrae lives in Winter Park, FL.