Peters Township to honor former pastor in advance of 102nd birthday
When the then-new pastor of Peters Township’s Center Presbyterian Church arrived in 1952, an in-law from Avalon Borough asked what must have been a common question of suburbanites at the time:
“What are going way out in the country like that for?” the Rev. Joseph Rodgers recalled.
He was 37 back then and can attest to the township’s bucolic setting in the final full year of Harry Truman’s presidency.
“All its roads were red-dog roads when we came out then,” he said about the goop from gob piles that used to pass for construction material. “One member of the police force. Many, many large farms.”
And of course, there was the Hollywood Restaurant at Route 19 and McMurray Road, just around the corner from his Crestview Drive home: “That was the social hub of the community, really.”
Today, he’s likely to stop by the new Eat’n Park up the street, receiving hugs from servers and greeting people who have known him for decades, if not all their lives.
On Jan. 2, nine days before his 102nd birthday, the Rev. Rodgers will receive the symbolic key to Peters during the township council meeting, where he’s likely to flash the type of humility that prompted him to joke with a journalist:
“You must be desperate for material!”
Center Church’s current pastor, the Rev. Jeff Schooley, would be quick to dispel such a notion.
“Whether folks realize it or not, the Peters Township that we live in and love today wouldn’t be the way it is if it weren’t for the quiet leadership of someone like Joe Rodgers,” he said.
A native of Duquesne City, the Rev. Rodgers made it to Peters by way of the University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, then assignments at churches in Wilkinsburg and McDonald. He was at Pitt while football head coach John Bain “Jock” Sutherland pretty much ran the university, he said.
“When I was going, the Cathedral of Learning was under construction,” he recollected in a clear, matter-of-fact manner that belies his centenarian status. “The Depression had made its impact, and it was unfinished inside. We had classrooms with unplastered walls and just concrete floors.”
Center Church, meanwhile, was marking its centennial at its current location when the Rev. Rodgers became pastor.
“When I came, there was a Sunday school superintendent,” he said. “Art Hickman was his name, at that time an old farmer. He said one time, in church, that if you put everybody who went to sleep in church end-to-end, they’d be a lot more comfortable. Actually, strange as it might seem, it’s that type of memory that’s precious.”
Along with his late wife, Jessie – she lived to be 100 – and sons, Joe and John, the Rev. Rodgers watched the church grow to a peak of 900 in the congregation during his nearly three decades as pastor. After he retired, he served for six years on the staff of Church of the Covenant in Washington for six years.
Today, as Center Church’s pastor emeritus, he remains active and a fixture to the point where members of the congregation are notified if he won’t be in attendance on a given Sunday.
“I still enjoy, I would say more than anything else, calling on people, especially if there is some need,” the Rev. Rodgers said. “That’s not a chore. That’s a privilege.
“To me, the most precious thing about any church is the people. They can always sleep through the sermon, but when it comes to a one-on-one basis, that’s the most important part of the ministry, in my opinion. Absolutely.”
People throughout the Peters Township community and beyond are invited to help honor him during Center Church’s service at 11 a.m. Jan. 8, joining members of a congregation who have the utmost respect for their onetime leader.
“We’re Protestants,” the Rev. Schooley said, “but if we had saints, there’s no doubt they would advocate for his sainthood.”