October 21 Today in OPC History

On October 21, 1936, Covenant Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, California, was received by the Presbytery of California of the four-month old Presbyterian Church of America. Ten days earlier, the church conducted its first worship service in a lodge hall when 22 people heard elder David "Scotty" Neilands's exhortation from Exodus 40. The church began with twelve charter members, and fifty years later, three of them were still members of the church.

Robert Churchill served the church from 1937 to 1948, and during his tenure the church purchased a large house that it remodeled for worship services. When Robert Graham pastored the church from 1949 to 1955, the church demolished the front half of the house and built a chapel that was completed and dedicated on March 23, 1952. Twenty-five years later, an arsonist set fire to the building. An insurance settlement and the dedicated labor of men in the congregation enabled its restoration into an even more suitable worship facility.

Covenant OPC has a distinguished history in several respects. Founding Elder Neilands served the church for over six decades, and he was joined by the Rev. Richard Lewis, whose 44-year pastorate was, at the time of his retirement, the longest in the denomination’s history. This small flock has also seen two of its young men become professors at Westminster Theological Seminary: Robert D. Knudsen and Harvie M. Conn.

Following Lewis’s retirement in 2001, the Rev. Wayne Forkner has pastored Covenant OPC.

Picture: Front left to right, unidentified, R. Piper, D. Neilands, H. Coray, R. Churchill, R. Nicholas; Back left to right, C. Ahlfeldt, D. Poundstone, R. Graham, B. Hunt, and L. Eyres.