Sampson’s Mills church to hold open house for anniversary

Historic artifacts will be on display Saturday afternoon.

Saturday will mark the culmination of Sampson’s Mills Presbyterian Church’s 125th anniversary celebrations.

Loving their neighbors since 1900, parishioners of the White Oak landmark, located at 1665 Lincoln Way, pride themselves in loving and serving Jesus Christ, empowering their neighbors and cultivating community.

They will have an open house from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday where they will have treasures from the church archives on display, refreshments and children’s activities.

The event is a way to remind the community the church is still in White Oak, according to communications and office manager Amber Keefer, who said items at the event will include the building’s design plans, woodwork and more.

“The celebration is to give us time to reflect, a way to look toward the future and the consistency that Sampson’s Mills has provided the community for 125 years,” Keefer said. “We have always been a wonderful landing spot for kids of all ages, for our youth programming, through our intergenerational programming.”

The church will also have opportunities to connect to current ministries with representatives from Cupboard Stretchers food bank ministry, EPIC Wednesdays, the building’s partner Mon Yough Chorale and more.

May 4 was the anniversary kick-off during worship. They have also had interview sermons, which will incorporate real-life events and scripture together, throughout the year.

The next interview sermon will take place Sept. 14 with Rev. Jessica Archer, who is the general minister of Pittsburgh Presbytery.

Keefer told the Mon Valley Independent

in May a committee was organized to plan events for the anniversary.

“It’s just celebrating the fact that we have been neighbors in White Oak for 125 years, (which is) kind of the theme of everything. We try to open our doors to the community.”

Having various roles within the church, Shannon Mc-Dowell is a part of the 125th anniversary committee and said in May they wanted to try something different this year for the anniversary.

“We wanted there to be lots of points of entry for people,” McDowell said. “Say you’re a family that has considered that church your church home for a really long time, but your kid has a softball game the night of the dinner. We didn’t want you to be left out of the opportunity to celebrate. And so, that’s why we wanted it to be something more than just one dinner at one time.

“So we really just wanted to make sure that all of our celebrations were really community focused because we’re very lucky to be in the community, and not just the white oak community, but the McKeesport community, the North Versailles community and the North Huntington community. We draw people from all over the area.”

History and importance

With 195 current members, the Presbyterian church started as a mission Sunday school in 1892 with meeting places, including the Sampson Homestead, which was located around Lincoln Way in what was once Versailles Township This small gathering of people grew, and on May 31, 1900, the church formally organized as Sampson’s Mills Presbyterian Church. The church was chartered to be a nonprofit organization May 1, 1925.

The church was the first dedicated church building completed in 1902 at 1978 Lincoln Way on a gift of land from the Sampson Homestead parcel.

“When they started meeting in the 1880s, a Bible study group was started and that is where Sampson’s Mills came from and there was a gristmill called Sampson’s mills,” Keefer said. “The family name was Sampson and it was on Jacks Run Creek near Lincoln Way and Route 48.”

Keefer added that the gristmill is still in the front of the building, moving to the current church in the 1990s.

Over the next 25 years, the church grew out of the physical space. So in 1954, they purchased the property at 1665 Lincoln Way and started to build their current location.

The building was constructed in two parts. The “Christian Education Building” was the first to be built in 1957 with the fellowship hall serving as the worship space for SAMPSON’S MILLS •A4

“The celebration is to give us time to reflect, a way to look toward the future and the consistency that Sampson’s Mills has provided the community for 125 years.”

AMBER KEEFER Sunday mornings. The sanctuary was completed in 1973.

Many years later, the pandemic sent worship online, and people still gathered from home at 10:30 a.m. Sundays. Worship is still held at that time every week with worship still live-streamed.

The church is known for holding Food Truck Fridays in the summertime, Halloween events in the fall and Community Vacation Bible School in the Park, which took place this year from July 28 through Aug. 1.

There are several other events that the group hosts and helps with as well as several ministries, including Cupboard Stretchers, which provides meals for people around the holidays as the church is partnered with the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

“It is always our church’s goal that we want kids to feel like they are just as much a part of that church as the grown-ups are even more so,” Mc-Dowell said. “We’re doing specific things before the anniversary and it’s always done through the lens of what are the kids’ responsibilities during this and how are we highlighting them too.”

On Aug. 29, 2024, the Presbytery voted to call former Sampson’s Mills Pastor Archer as the next General Minister of Pittsburgh Presbytery. The current interim pastor is Rev. Dr. Stephen Wilson.

According to McDowell, the point of the anniversary is to remind the community that the church is still here, has been in the White Oak area for a long time and hopefully will continue thriving for many more years to come.

“The anniversary is important because it is awakening people to the past and just how much people were invested back then and getting that parish going and it’s still strong,” Joann Welch, who is on the anniversary committee, said in May. “It’s kind of putting a new face on things and opening everything up to the community to come and participate and just be united.”

Visit sampsonsmills.org to learn more about the church and to get future events/ministries.