{"id":2687,"date":"2008-11-18T20:15:58","date_gmt":"2008-11-18T20:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/?p=2687"},"modified":"2010-12-22T11:28:35","modified_gmt":"2010-12-22T16:28:35","slug":"6709","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2008\/11\/18\/6709\/","title":{"rendered":"From Humble Start Came 125 Years of Fruitful Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"

NORTH EASTON, MA (November 18, 2008) \u2013 The first meeting of people who would form the Covenant Congregational Church<\/a> might not have inspired them about the future prospects of starting a church, but the congregation celebrated its 125th anniversary over the weekend.
\n
\nOn Friday night, members gathered for an Old Brown Hymnal Society hymn sing led by Bob Dvorak. Jay Phelan, dean and president of North Park Theological Seminary, spoke at a formal banquet. Former and current pastors led the Sunday morning worship service.<\/p>\n

In 1871, a small group of Swedish immigrants in North Easton, Massachusetts gathered in the home of Andrew Erickson to hear a traveling preacher named J. G. Princell, according to Johnny Agurkis. \u201cThere was some disappointment at the turnout that evening,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n

\"Rainbow\"Only four to six people seemed to have turned out at Erickson\u2019s invitation. \u201cBut from that initial gathering came a process of vision and discernment that would ultimately lead to the formation of a congregation 13 years later,\u201d Agurkis says.<\/p>\n

On December 20, 1883, that initial small group had grown to 39, and a church was officially born.\u00a0 It began with the name, \u201cSwedish Christian Evangelical Ebed-Melek Church of North Easton,\u201d (Ebed-Melek risked his life by asking King Zedekiah for permission to raise the prophet Jeremiah from the cistern into which he had been thrown and left to die. The story is told in Jeremiah 38:1-11<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

For its first 100 years of existence, Covenant Congregational Church was housed on Main Street in North Easton. Just a few months after officially forming, the young congregation was given the opportunity to purchase a building and property on Main Street for $1,400.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a huge and impossible sum of money for this small group of people back in 1884,\u201d Agurkis says.\u00a0 However, the minutes from that initial meeting reflected the group\u2019s determination: \u201cIt appeared to be an insurmountable barrier, but after much discussion and prayer, in faith the group decided to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those words have become a common refrain throughout the church\u2019s history, Agurkis says. \u201cThrough years of war, through years of the Great Depression, through years of prosperity, through years of social upheaval, through the tragic death of a pastor in the midst of the building of a new church facility back in the early 1980\u2019s, the Covenant Congregational Church of North Easton has faced these challenges in faith . . . and decided to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: the accompanying photo of the church captures an unusual double rainbow display.<\/em><\/p>\n

Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NORTH EASTON, MA (November 18, 2008) \u2013 The first meeting of people who would form the Covenant Congregational Church might not have inspired them about the future prospects of starting a church, but the congregation celebrated its 125th anniversary over the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Humble Start Came 125 Years of Fruitful Ministry - Covenant Newswire Archives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2008\/11\/18\/6709\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From Humble Start Came 125 Years of Fruitful Ministry - 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