108-Year-Old Congregation Says Farewell

One of the oldest congregations in the San Fernando Valley, First Presbyterian Church of San Fernando, ended its 108 years as a church Sunday in a service mixed with sadness and well wishes for an incoming black congregation.

It was the second Presbyterian church in the Valley to dissolve in the last month; Van Nuys First Presbyterian Church said its farewells Jan. 12.

Both congregations fell victim to ever-smaller, aging and Anglo memberships in parts of the East Valley with growing racial and ethnic minority populations.

For the final service Sunday afternoon, the 11 rows of pews at San Fernando First, a fixture at Maclay Avenue and 4th Street since 1924, were nearly filled with more than 150 people. At the end, the church had only 75 members--others in attendance were former members and Presbyterian clergy.

Retiree Walter Misner, who was an active San Fernando First member for 46 years before moving to Arizona, took his old usher spot in a back corner of the church.

“I’m not happy about [the closing],” said Misner, “but I’m hoping somebody else will keep the church up.”

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Indeed, Parks Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, which has struggled to find a permanent church for nearly a decade, will begin services in the building this Sunday.

A Presbyterian official said late last week that negotiations to sell the property were incomplete. But the pastor of Parks Chapel AME spoke briefly at the farewell service, assuring the congregation that Christian ministry would continue in the building.

“Nothing’s ending today,” said the Rev. Jordan Davis, whose 200-member congregation has been holding services for years only one block away at the Odd Fellows fraternal hall. “There is no stopping the miracle of love--we are all one,” he said.

Paul Hefner of Sylmar, an elder at San Fernando First for three decades, said the church’s membership has an average age of about 70. “This was a sad event but also a joyous one celebrating our years here.”

In the same vein, the Rev. Robert Fernandez, the executive for the Valley-area Presbytery of San Fernando, told the worshipers, “We have a sense of disappointment, but at the same time a sense of fulfillment.”

The Rev. Peter Del Nagro, a Valley pastor who chaired the Presbyterian commission that decided to close the San Fernando church, praised the congregation as “a blessing to untold numbers of people.”

The congregation, founded Aug. 11, 1889, first met in the city’s Methodist church before moving into a series of buildings. A Scottish-style, red-brick building with a square tower was built at the present location. Its sanctuary includes an imposing row of organ pipes high above the altar. Actor William Shatner was associated with the church in the 1960s.

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After the site sustained substantial damage in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, church leaders made extensive repairs and had the red-brick walls covered with a light brown stucco. Spanish tiles were put on the roof in an apparent attempt to blend in with the prevailing decor of the city.

The end of the Presbyterian church came as its relations with Parks Chapel AME were growing closer. The churches held joint worship services the first Sunday of this year and last, for example.

“The relationship epitomizes everything that is love and cooperation between people,” said Davis, the pastor of the only African Methodist Episcopal church in the Valley.