At 202 West Union Street in Somerset, in the Laurel Highlands of western Pennsylvania, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ has proclaimed Reformed faith since 1797. Its story runs from a German Reformed congregation through the church mergers that created the United Church of Christ, while its present life is grounded in worship, music, education, hospitality, and practical care for Somerset neighbors. Its welcome is simple and direct: “No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.”
From St. Paul’s Reformed Church to United Church of Christ
Founded in 1797, St. Paul’s began as St. Paul’s Reformed Church, part of the German Reformed movement inspired by the Protestant leader Uldrich Zwingli. When the Reformed Church merged with the Evangelical Church in 1934, the congregation became St. Paul’s Evangelical and Reformed Church. In 1957, the Evangelical and Reformed Church combined with the Congregational Christian Church to form the United Church of Christ, and St. Paul’s took its present name. The names changed, but the congregation has understood its history as one of an abiding faith witness.
Later in the 1960s, St. Paul’s welcomed the congregation of Salem United Church of Christ from Lavansville into a shared life. Memories of Salem give that merger a human shape. The congregation is remembered for Sunday school, women’s guild gatherings, plays, festivals, and an annual Harvest Home Service when garden produce was brought forward for the minister. Its building had one large room, colored leaded glass, and a round stained glass window that now hangs in Salem Chapel. That window is one of the clearest physical links between the two congregations. Salem is also remembered as a close church family, with children learning in Sunday school and much of the social life unfolding in homes and around shared tables.
A major chapter in St. Paul’s development began when Rev. Richard Shellenberger started serving the Somerset Charge in 1953. He remained pastor until 1982. A new educational facility was built in 1961 and 1962 and developed into a flexible space for church activities and projects. During his tenure, St. Paul’s acquired four properties and a recreational retreat at North Fork. Shellenberger’s philosophy was that ministry meant being with people, loving them, and growing with them. He also carried that concern beyond the congregation through service on the Heart Association, American Cancer Society, Library Board, and Tableland Community Association. His emphasis on people and participation helped define the church’s growth.
St. Paul’s remains an active, caring, progressive family of faith within the United Church of Christ. Its identity connects two centuries of Reformed history with a city ministry that reaches through worship, learning, music, hospitality, and service to people in immediate need.
Sunday Worship at 9:30, Followed by Sunday School
The regular rhythm of St. Paul’s makes the essential pattern clear:
- Sunday worship: 9:30 a.m.
- Sunday school: 10:45 a.m.
- Tuesday Bible study: 10:00 a.m. in Salem Chapel
At 9:30, the congregation gathers around God’s word through Scripture, song, and the spoken word. The worship tradition includes hymns and Psalms, organ accompaniment, the Chancel Choir, and the Children’s and Youth Choirs. Music is not treated as a separate addition but as part of the congregation’s worship and formation.
Children begin the service with their parents or guardians in the sanctuary. That shared opening allows a child to experience the whole church before moving into age appropriate worship later in the service. Adults, young people, and children therefore begin as one congregation while learning in ways suited to their ages.
Children Begin in Worship, Then Learn Their Own Way
Children’s Church is designed for children from age five through fifth grade. After the Time for Children, participants leave the sanctuary and meet in the CE Room at the end of the education wing hallway. The curriculum follows the same worship theme as the service in the sanctuary but presents it in a form suited to children. Families can pick them up outside the CE Room when the regular worship service concludes. The ministry depends on adults and young people who help lead and support the program.
Sunday school at 10:45 has included graded classes for children, classes for junior high and senior high youth, an adult class, and the Young at Heart class. The children’s classrooms are in the education wing, while other groups meet around the church in spaces including the library extension, Fellowship Hall, and Salem Chapel. The church’s education ministry has also included preschool, nursery, Vacation Bible School, and confirmation classes, creating a path for learning that extends from early childhood into adult faith.
Music gives children and young people a place of service as well as participation. The Children’s and Youth Choir prepares music for congregational worship and special gatherings, while the Chancel Choir supports the broader musical life of the church. Marcy Shellenberger directs the Children’s and Youth Choir, and David Neimiller serves as organist and Director of Music.
Youth ministry also reaches beyond the classroom. The youth group has taken part in regional United Church of Christ events, camp, mission trips, food collections, and service projects. Youth mission work has included caring for farm animals, tending gardens, learning about food and health through Heifer International, collecting school supplies, and supporting community projects with adults. These experiences place faith formation beside responsibility, teamwork, and service.
Learning, Fellowship, and Musical Leadership
Tuesday Bible study meets at 10:00 a.m. in Salem Chapel and follows themes connected with Sunday worship. The practice links Scripture reading to the week’s worship texts, giving worship and study a continuing rhythm. The adult class has engaged Scripture, theology, church tradition, and current events in discussion, while Young at Heart provides another setting for study and fellowship.
The church’s wider fellowship life includes a Men’s Brotherhood, Women’s Fellowship, family dinners, a church family picnic, and a mother and daughter tea. Other longstanding ministries include quilters and knitters, card ministry, hospitality, and service to shut-ins. These groups connect study and worship with the practical work of making church life welcoming and strengthening relationships across generations.
Pastor Rev. J. Matthew Deal provides spiritual and scriptural leadership, while David Neimiller and Marcy Shellenberger lead the musical ministry. Prayer at St. Paul’s is both personal and communal. The church has used Scripture, hymns, Psalms, the Lord’s Prayer, and expressions of praise, thanksgiving, confession, and petition to bring people together in prayer for the church, community, and world.
The Good Samaritan Fund: Healing, Shelter, Food, and Hope
The Good Samaritan Fund responds with compassion to urgent needs in the Somerset community. It may provide short term assistance to individuals and families facing unexpected financial hardship or another immediate challenge. The fund reflects a practical expression of the commandment to love God and neighbor, turning concern for people into direct help at the moment it is needed.
St. Paul’s long ministry has included temporary lodging, food, eviction prevention, emergency funding for medical assistance, and heating assistance. These forms of assistance have helped neighbors address temporary lodging needs, avoid eviction, obtain food, and meet urgent medical or heating expenses. The congregation summarizes this work as healing, sheltering, feeding, and giving hope. Its worship, spiritual and emotional care, food and housing assistance, and use of its building as a community resource are all supported through the offerings of members and friends.
Food has also been a recurring expression of congregational care. The youth collected nonperishable items for the Somerset Food Pantry during the Souper Bowl of Caring, and the church has identified food pantries, the Mobile Food Pantry, and other community partners as part of its wider mission. A community garden has likewise been intended to connect the work of cultivation with the needs of hungry neighbors.
Love for the World Begins with Somerset
Love for the World is both a phrase and a mission. Its motto, “planting seeds locally, to grow fields of grace and peace worldwide,” places neighborhood relationships at the center of global concern. At an early gathering, about 30 community partners staffed information tables, roughly 200 neighbors attended, and more than 40 volunteers helped host the supper, learning, and prayer event focused on blessing children and families. The gathering grew into a mission and outreach ministry of St. Paul’s.
The community organizations involved have included Somerset County Children and Youth Services, the Boys and Girls Club, Fred Rogers Center, Beginnings Inc., CASA, early intervention programs, the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank, Helping Hands Food Pantry, Dressed, Trinity Farms Center for Healing, and other agencies serving children, families, health, food access, education, and family support. This network reflects the church’s conviction that caring for neighbors requires relationships among people and organizations with different forms of expertise.
Taste of the World offered a family friendly expression of that mission. Community members representing Brazil, Egypt, India, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Thailand offered traditional foods and shared information about their homelands, while Somerset exchange students prepared foods from France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. Children and youth could explore games, crafts, stories, and multi ethnic and bilingual books from the represented cultures. The food created an immediate point of contact, while the activities helped children notice commonalities and differences within their community. The purpose was to build strong, caring relationships among people near and far.
A Building Meant to Be Opened and Used
St. Paul’s has a long tradition of keeping the church open. The building has been used to shelter people without housing and to offer others a place for solitude. In severe weather, the congregation has said it will worship whenever two or three people gather, while asking those traveling in dangerous conditions to use judgment and prioritize safety.
Different parts of the building serve distinct purposes. The sanctuary centers worship, the CE Room supports Children’s Church, Salem Chapel hosts Bible study, and Fellowship Hall has gathered people for shared meals and community events. The library, narthex, education wing, pastor’s office, and Youth Room have supported learning, prayer, hospitality, and youth activity. Love for the World gatherings have joined indoor and outdoor spaces, using both Fellowship Hall and Shellenberger Park. Transportation assistance has also been offered for trips to church and church related events. The church office is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Lent, Easter, and a Blue Christmas
St. Paul’s understands Lent as a forty day journey through Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection. The season encourages reflection on relationships with God and neighbors, including the painful and complicated parts of life as well as moments of love and celebration. Lent is a time to repent, reconsider faithfulness, and find strength in the witness of Christ and the disciples.
Holy Week connects worship, sacrament, and the life of the church. Ash Wednesday includes the imposition of ashes. Maundy Thursday commemorates the Lord’s Supper and has included children receiving their first Holy Communion. Good Friday uses the traditional Tenebrae, or Service of Darkness, with adult Sunday school participants helping lead the congregation. At Easter, a sunrise procession has gathered in the Edgewood Avenue narthex and walked to Union Cemetery, with youth and confirmation participants helping lead the service. A breakfast follows in Fellowship Hall, and Easter worship at 9:30 a.m. includes Holy Communion.
Blue Christmas worship makes room for people whose holiday experience includes grief, depression, anxiety, loneliness, illness, or difficulty finding meaning amid cultural pressures. Its emphasis is on quiet prayer, worship, and healing for those who need a more reflective setting during the season.
St. Paul’s also brings a celebratory note to the Christian calendar. Its Mardi Gras worship has included Dixieland music from Johnstown Brass Works, selections by the Chancel Choir and the Children’s and Youth Choirs, and a potluck brunch in Fellowship Hall featuring King’s Cake. These seasonal gatherings show how worship, music, food, and fellowship are closely connected in the life of the congregation.
Reformed Faith Put Into Practice
St. Paul’s understanding of faith begins with oneness with Jesus Christ. Its pastoral reflection on Paul’s letter to the Philippians speaks of Christ’s humility, obedience, suffering, death, and resurrection as the path by which God reconciles humanity and makes love and grace available. Salvation is not a solitary endeavor. People work out their life of faith together, supported by the church as the Body of Christ.
That Reformed conviction becomes a life of service in acts of love, acceptance, justice, peace, and grace. The church’s identity as active, caring, and progressive is expressed through education, music, hospitality, food and housing assistance, support for people experiencing homelessness, mission partnerships, and gatherings that connect Somerset residents across cultural and generational lines. Its mission concerns are both local and global, involving mission partners, global ministries, relief work, and congregational service.
Giving sustains these ministries. Gifts can be made in person, by mail, or online through tithe.ly, with recurring online gifts also available. The church names regular worship, spiritual and emotional care, food and housing assistance, musical opportunities for children, youth, and adults, and the use of its building and congregation as a community resource as essential purposes of giving. Online giving supports this continuing work.
At St. Paul’s, the Reformed faith of 1797 remains joined to a present centered on worship, learning, music, open hospitality, and direct care for neighbors. This is the continuing shape of St. Paul’s United Church of Christ in Somerset.