Worship on the South Common
South Congregational Church sits on the South Amherst Common, a patch of open ground also known as Fiddler's Green. Across 5.7 acres, the 1825 meetinghouse, an education wing, and a memorial garden look east toward the Pelham Hills and the valley of Hop Brook. On Sunday mornings, the sanctuary fills at 10 a.m. with the sound of the 1896 Casavant pipe organ, the choir, and a congregation that spans every generation from nursery-age children to longtime members in their nineties.
The Sunday service follows a traditional pattern drawn from the Congregational tradition. Scripture is read, a sermon is preached, prayers are offered, and the choir sings two choral pieces each week. Communion is celebrated on the first Sunday of every month and at special services throughout the year. The bread is gluten free and the cup holds grape juice, with deacons serving both. Everyone is welcome at the table.
Worship is also offered online. Services are livestreamed on YouTube every Sunday at 10 a.m., and recordings of past services are kept on the same channel so anyone can revisit a sermon or catch up on a missed week. The chancel is often graced by visiting musicians from across the Pioneer Valley, and the order of worship each Sunday includes a children's message early in the service.
Plan Your First Visit
Visitors are a regular part of life at South Church. The community describes itself as a place where "whoever you are and wherever you are on life's journey, you are welcome to attend and participate fully." Greeters meet people at the door and walk them upstairs to the sanctuary. There is no dress code: on any given Sunday some wear suits, others wear shorts.
The building is fully accessible. An elevator sits just inside the accessible side door and rises to the second floor sanctuary. Accessible restrooms are on both the first and second floors. The sanctuary is heated and air conditioned, and a T-Coil hearing assistance system is available for those who need it. The parking lot behind the church holds sixty-five spaces, with four accessible spaces near the south entrance, and there is additional parking by the South Common if the lot fills.
Arriving ten to fifteen minutes early gives visitors time to park, drop children at the nursery, settle into a seat, and listen to the organ prelude that begins a few minutes before ten. Ushers hand out a printed bulletin that follows the order of worship, and a visitor card in the pew rack lets newcomers ask to be contacted. The offering is taken during the service, but no one is expected to give. After worship the pastor shakes hands at the front door and refreshments are served in the Kenseth Room during Fellowship Hour.
Children, Youth, and Family Ministries
Children are at the heart of the congregation. Free nursery care for infants and toddlers is offered during the service on the second floor, and changing stations are in every bathroom. After the children's message early in the service, kids in grades K through 6 walk with their teachers to the classrooms down the hall from the sanctuary and return at the fellowship hour to reunite with their families. Activity packs are also available by the sanctuary entrance for children who would rather stay with their parents.
Sunday School uses Spark Bibles, organized around the same scripture the pastor preaches about, so families can talk about the same story at home. The 2026-2027 themes begin with "Who is My Neighbor?" in September and move through covenant promises, gratitude, peace, character, Jesus, healing, abundance, and reformation. The teachers are graduate and undergraduate students in Amherst with experience in children's ministry. Classes are organized as Nursery and Pre-School (led by Elena Denno and Elizabeth "Libby" Smith), Grades 1-3 (Olivia Oats), and Grades 4-6 (Lee Deater-Deckard).
In the summer the church runs Kids' Fun Week, a one-week Vacation Bible School experience for children who have completed kindergarten through fifth grade. In 2026 the program ran June 22 through 26, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with daily connection themes around friends, family, generations, community, and Jesus, following the Shine curriculum's #KidsConnect material. The week includes art, music, outdoor games, a daily Bible story acted out by counselors, lunch each day, and an all-camp scavenger hunt.
The 1896 Casavant Organ and the Music Ministry
Worship at South Church is shaped by an instrument with a long journey. The 1896 Casavant Organ, Opus 74, was originally installed at Saint Ann's Church in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where it served a French-Canadian immigrant community around the mills. When three Woonsocket churches merged decades later, the organ, nicknamed "St. Hyacinthe," passed through several hands before Parkman S. Shaw Jr. of Brookline arranged for the Northampton firm of Czelusniak et Dugal to remove and store it.
South Church's Organ Committee advocated for purchasing the available instrument in 2011, and the congregation voted to install it. After restoration by Czelusniak et Dugal, it was first played in a service on September 9, 2012, and is now the oldest working Casavant in the United States. The church has a long tradition of organ music, having raised $40 in 1829 to pay a singing master and surviving an 1853 quarrel over music that split the congregation into two groups, one meeting upstairs and one down.
Marilyn Brayne has been the Minister of Music for more than thirty years, after serving first as organist. She holds a Bachelor of Music from McGill University in her native Montreal and a Master of Arts from the same school, and for many years taught general music at Hadley Elementary School. The choir rehearses on Thursday evenings from 7 to 8:30 p.m. and on Sunday mornings at 9 a.m., preparing two choral pieces for each service. Visiting musicians from around the valley frequently enrich worship.
Two Centuries on the Common
South Church traces its origin to May 3, 1824, when seventy-five subscribers signed a preliminary agreement to form the South Amherst Congregational Society. They pledged building materials, labor, cash, and miscellaneous items with a value of about $3,300, and Deacon Nathaniel C. Dickinson donated the land. The South Congregational Church Society was officially organized on June 28, 1824, and the building was dedicated on November 3, 1825. The steeple bell, inscribed with its maker's name, was cast by the Revere Foundry.
The first pastor was the Rev. Horace B. Chapin, called at an annual salary of $400 plus twenty cords of wood cut, split, and stacked in his woodshed. Deacon Dickinson was paid $6.00 in 1829 for ringing the bell for one year. In 1939 the church received the South East Chapel as a gift, dismantled the building, and moved it from what is now Mechanic Street to become the church kitchen.
The congregation has long been active in missions. A Home Missionary Society, a Foreign Missions Society, a Ladies' Benevolent Society, and missionaries sent out from the church over the years all testify to that impulse. From 2009 to 2017, teams traveled to West Virginia with the Appalachian Service Project to make homes warmer, safer, and drier. The tradition of giving Bibles to Sunday School children on Children's Sunday began in June 1890 and continues.
Climate Action and the Meadow
South Church has been a leader in caring for creation for more than two decades. It was a 2004 screening of An Inconvenient Truth at a Wednesday Nite Live program that began the church's intentional climate work. Within a few years the congregation had raised more than $600,000 for a deep energy retrofit that added new insulation, energy-efficient windows, and electric heat-pump HVAC to replace the old oil burners. In 2012, Julie Marcus advocated for a 50 kW solar array to power the new electric systems and achieve net-zero energy use; the array was dedicated in June 2013.
The Green Team has since guided the church through every level of the UCC Green Congregation Award, joined regional climate actions, and helped Amherst adopt its town-wide zero-energy bylaw. Beginning in December 2022, South Church joined the 11th Hour climate action that was spreading across the country, ringing bells every eleventh day of each month at the eleventh hour for eleven minutes with partner congregations, including Grace Episcopal Church.
For its 200th anniversary in 2024, a Meadow committee formed to plant native species alongside the existing apple trees, shrubs, and brambles. Serviceberry bushes, spicebushes, and crabapple trees now grow on the property as part of an effort to address biodiversity loss alongside climate change. The Green eblast appears in the Sunday bulletin each week and shares news and actions with members and friends.
Church Suppers and the Sleighbell Fair
Food has long been a way South Church builds community and supports its neighbors. The kitchen, renovated in 2018 to modern plumbing and safety codes, hums through the year with sit-down meals and to-go dinners. January brings Comfort Food, February Lasagna, March a varied menu, April Pulled Pork, June a Spring Supper (dine-in or to-go), August a Chicken BBQ paired with the Amherst Community Band concert on the Common, October a Roast Pork Supper, and November the famous lunch served during the Sleighbell Fair.
A portion of the proceeds from many meals goes to the Amherst Survival Center and the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. During COVID the church added to-go dinners, and the format proved so popular it has remained part of the rotation ever since. Orders can be placed online or by phone through the church office.
The Sleighbell Fair, held the Saturday before Thanksgiving, is the largest single-day ministry and fellowship event of the year. From 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., the lower floor of the church becomes a market of cakes, cookies, muffins, sweet breads, handmade crafts in wood, glass, cloth, paper, and yarn, jams and jellies from Fiddler's Pantry, a clothing room with labels from Ann Taylor to LL Bean, a white elephant room, toys and games, an Artists' and Artisans' Gallery, and a raffle room. Santa visits from noon until 2 p.m. The smell of cinnamon buns drifts through the building in the early morning, and lunch service begins at 10:30 with clam chowder, vegetable soup, chicken salad, hot pork sandwiches, and vegan sandwiches, plus dessert.
Fellowship, Care, and Outreach
A web of small gatherings weaves through the life of the church. Bible Study meets on Wednesdays to discuss scripture and books with religious themes. Called to Care provides visitation, meals, transportation, cards, and holiday cheer baskets to members who are homebound or in assisted care. The Prayer Shawl Ministry knits shawls to give to loved ones in times of difficulty or joy. The Men's Fellowship Breakfast meets monthly with a speaker, breakfast, and good company. Partnered in Prayer gathers monthly over Zoom to pray for members and friends in need. The craft group, called "Crafties," meets Tuesday and Thursday mornings to make items for the Sleighbell Fair.
The Board of Christian Outreach identifies and facilitates missions to serve others and works for justice in the local community, the state, the nation, and the world. Each year the church shares a percentage of its donations with other charitable organizations, most of them local, including Craig's Doors, Hampshire Support Alliance, and the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. Members also staff local homeless shelters. The church sends 9% of its pledged offerings to mission causes and coordinates volunteer labor for shelter programs.
Mission and Beliefs
South Church is a Trinitarian congregation, affirming belief in God the creator, Jesus the Christ, and the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit. The congregation is open and affirming, welcoming, respecting, and supporting people of every race, ethnicity, creed, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, and physical and mental ability. The church is also immigrant welcoming and a recognized green congregation within the United Church of Christ.
Scripture is taken seriously but not literally: in the human words of the Bible, the congregation listens for God's voice speaking into current circumstances. The congregation celebrates two sacraments, Baptism and Communion. Faith is understood as something that asks, doubts, believes, and trusts, and the church sees its mission as working for justice and establishing God's realm in the world.
The United Church of Christ is a denomination of more than 5,000 churches and nearly one million members across the United States, known for being the first historically white denomination to ordain an African American, the first to ordain a woman, the first to ordain an openly gay man, and the first Christian church to affirm the right of same-gender couples to marry. South Church belongs to the Southern New England Conference of the UCC.
Arts and Social Justice
The Arts and Social Justice Series brings concerts, book groups, and community gatherings into the sanctuary and beyond. Recent seasons have included an organ recital by Christopher Houlihan, the John Rose Distinguished College Organist at Trinity College in Hartford, on the 1896 instrument; a spring concert by the Amherst Regional High School Hurricane Singers; the November movie-and-pizza nights that pair films about immigration with discussion; and book groups on works by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Tom Weiner and Amilcar Shabazz, and Yaa Gyasi.
The signature community event is Reading Frederick Douglass Together, an annual public reading of Douglass's 1852 speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" held in partnership with the Town of Amherst Department of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In 2026 the program marked the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with the theme "Reaffirming Our Unalienable Rights" and added a performance by the Amherst Area Gospel Choir. The program is supported by Mass Humanities, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Jones Library, and the League of Women Voters of Amherst.
Midweek, the church hosts Calm and Candlelight, a series of Taizé-style services offered each Wednesday during the winter months. Patterned on the prayer of the ecumenical Taizé Community in France, the services run from 6 to 6:30 p.m. and feature live music, prayer, and time for quiet reflection. A community supper of soup, salad, and bread precedes the service at 5:30 p.m., with vegetarian and gluten-free options. The series was featured by the Southern New England Conference of the UCC and on NEPM's The Fabulous 413.
Pastoral and Congregational Leadership
Rev. Dr. Susan Cartmell is the pastor of South Church. She joined the congregation on June 8, 2025, and was formally installed on May 17, 2026, in a service of celebration with area clergy and special music from Minister of Music Marilyn Brayne. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Harvard Divinity School, and Andover Newton Theological School, Rev. Cartmell has served settled pastorates in Winchester, Needham, and Harwich Port, Massachusetts, and an interim pastorate in Appleton, Wisconsin. Together with her wife, the Rev. Peggy O'Connor, a retired UCC minister and former chaplain at the Chautauqua Institution, she co-authored The Perpetual Pivot: Ministry in the Pandemic and Beyond, based on interviews with fifty-three clergy in seventeen states.
The church is governed in the Congregational way. The Church Council meets monthly as the administrative board, the Board of Trustees oversees budget, personnel, and the physical plant, and the Diaconate assists the pastor in pastoral care, worship, and membership. The Family Ministries Committee oversees education for children and youth, and the Board of Christian Outreach coordinates missions and social action. Members serve on every committee, board, and ministry of the church.
A Building Open to the Community
The 1825 meetinghouse and the adjoining education wing are used generously beyond Sunday mornings. The sanctuary seats 300 people and has AV connections, a sound system, and video recording capability. Below the sanctuary, the Kenseth Room seats 80. The building offers two large meeting spaces, three smaller classrooms, and a memorial garden off the east side with benches that has become a peaceful place for reflection and an occasional wedding.
Facilities are available for rental to members of the congregation and to select individuals or groups for purposes consistent with the church's mission. Weddings, funerals, memorial services, and not-for-profit community events with an educational, service-oriented, or outreach emphasis are all welcomed. The church is typically used for such gatherings as community-organized events, single or regularly scheduled long-term programs, and concerts like those in the Arts and Social Justice Series.
Joining the Congregation
Becoming a member is offered periodically throughout the year. Membership means making a commitment to participate in the church community and grow in faith, and the church in turn commits to support each member's spiritual growth. Anyone interested is welcome to subscribe to the weekly newsletter, attend Fellowship Hour after Sunday worship, explore the calendar of small groups and programs, or simply stop by on a Sunday morning and stay for a chat after the service.
Giving to the church can be done by bank account or credit card, by PayPal, or by Venmo at @SouthChurchAmherst. The annual stewardship pledge remains the foundation of the church's budget, supporting worship, music, education, climate work, outreach, and the building itself. Gifts of time, talent, and care are equally valued, from singing in the choir to knitting a prayer shawl to cooking for a church supper.