Church to celebrate long, long history
PENN TWP — More than two centuries of history will be celebrated next month when Nixon United Methodist Church, 334 Airport Road, marks 225 years.
Pastor William “B.T.” Gilligan said the church will have a special worship service at 10 a.m. July 17 attended by United Methodist Bishop Cynthia Moore-Koikoi of the Western Pennsylvania Conference and featuring the son of a former pastor from the 1950s as a guest speaker.
Tom Balliet, the son of the Rev. John Balliet, was born in the former parsonage that used to be attached to the church building.
A lunch in the church’s basement social hall will follow the service.
In addition, the church will also be presented with a quilt containing the names of church members from 1936.
“This was used as a fundraiser in the Depression,” said Gilligan. “For $25, you got your name embroidered into the quilt.
“As Methodists, we are not allowed to do raffles, but they did it because it was the Depression and they needed the funds,” he said.
Gilligan said the person who won the raffle was the pastor of Nixon United Methodist Church at the time. When he died, it went to his daughter. Her daughter found it in her mother’s things when her mother died five years ago and sent it back to the church.
Gilligan said one of the names on the quilt is Callen, which is still a family involved in the church.
The church is also trying to get copies of Methodist founder John Wesley’s handwritten notes to Mary Gant, an Irish immigrant who was considered the first Methodist in Pittsburgh.
“She was converted by John Wesley,” said Gilligan who has been in contact with the Carnegie Library to find the letters.
Gilligan said as part of the luncheon, a roll of butcher paper will be unrolled on one table allowing attendees to add their own dates and events to what will be a timeline for church history.
It’s a history that began in 1797 when people began meeting in Robert Brown’s home in Brownsdale just off Meridian Road for Methodist church services.
By 1839, the original church, then known as Brownsdale Methodist Church had been built across the road from the Brown home. The home and original church are gone, but the Brownsdale Methodist Church is still in existence. The cemetery contains the graves of veterans of the Revolutionary War. It’s tended by volunteers from the church.
Gilligan said that in 1926 the church moved to its present location in what was then known as Nixon Township. Which was ironic, he said, because a family of atheists named Nixon had moved from Brownsdale to the township because “it was sick of all the Christians.”
Gilligan said the church moved not to bedevil the Nixons but because “this was the place where nobody knew about Jesus.”
The original church stood abandoned until it was torn down 42 years later, but some of its stained glass still survives in the interior of the present church.
The church changed its name to Nixon United Methodist Church in 1968 when the Methodists merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church.
“It’s no relation to former President Nixon; we’re not related at all,” Gilligan noted.
Gilligan said Nixon United Methodist is the second-oldest still open United Methodist Church in Pennsylvania.
It also can claim to be one of the oldest sponsor of a Boy Scout troop in the state.
It has sponsored Boy Scout Troop 53 for 60 years. Nixon United Methodist Church also sponsors Cub Scout Pack 53 and more recently a Girl Scout Troop.
The church started a preschool 21 years ago. Another long-running institution at the church has been the living Nativity staged every Christmas season for the last 27 years. The church collects canned food donations for local food banks at the event.
It has two in-person Sunday worship services at 8:30 and 11 a.m. with the 11 a.m. service streamed online. Gilligan said the in-person services attract an average of 35 to 40 congregants while the online service is viewed by 60 more, mostly vacationing “snowbirds” or people who have to work Sundays.
Gilligan attributes the church’s longevity to the members.
“They’ve got tenactity and commitment. We’ve got some hard workers in this church,” Gilligan said.
