Strong at 100

For years, the doors threatened to close. There was never enough money to pay the bills, so people at Westminster Presbyterian Church often worried that their long history in the West Central neighborhood would come to an end. But instead of hunkering down and living in fear, members flung the doors wide open.

Today, Westminster Presbyterian has become home to a food bank, a clinic for people without health insurance, a work center for women and numerous ministries that help the poor and others in need.

Through faith, prayer and its outreach to the community, Westminster Presbyterian Church has survived and will celebrate its 100th anniversary Wednesday.

“The congregation didn’t give up during those tough times,” Pastor Sandy Brockway said. “No matter how hard it was, people prayed and looked beyond themselves to help the community.”

For the past 20 years, Westminster has been a “mission church in a mission field,” the pastor said.

The congregation has responded to a noble call: to feed the hungry, heal the sick, become a refuge to those who have nowhere else to turn.

By helping the community, it may have saved itself as well, earning financial support from the Inland Northwest Presbytery, which provides financial support to poor churches that help their needy neighbors.

Besides attending worship every Sunday, Westminster’s members help out in the various ministries in the church building. Those include Christ’s Kitchen, which provides work, job training and fellowship for poor women; Christ’s Clinic, a medical facility for people who can’t afford to go to the doctor; Westminster Food Bank, which feeds several thousand people each year; and Logos, a program for the neighborhood’s elementary school kids who come on Wednesday nights to play games, sing songs and eat dinner.

All this from a congregation with only 51 members – most elderly with wheelchairs and canes but with the desire to make a difference in the lives of their neighbors.

Westminster is a community hub throughout the week, but that’s especially the case on Thursday mornings as various groups convene at the small church. Volunteers can be found stocking shelves with loaves of bread, canned goods and other items for the food bank. Other members also attend Bible study in a room across from the sanctuary. Down the hall, at least two dozen women spend five hours mixing and packaging dry ingredients for food, such as bean soup and corn bread that are later sold in gift baskets at area churches and bazaars. The women, who receive lunch for the day, also leave with a paycheck and a reference for future jobs. Throughout the day and also during the week, visitors come to the church for exams and other services at Christ Clinic.

“We have no money to offer,” said longtime member Ardyce LaBrie, who often scouts out newcomers on Sundays and invites them to sit with her during the service. “But what little we have, we give.”

Westminster Presbyterian was born in 1905, in a space that used to be a butcher shop on Dean Avenue, according to a church history compiled by Whitworth College student Laura Waite. It was soon known as Fifth Presbyterian Church of Spokane, with 37 members led by the Rev. James Shields. Later that year, the congregation began gathering in the basement of its new church, located at the time on Cannon Street and Gardner Avenue. In 1960, the church moved to its current building on Boone Avenue. The church is a familiar sight to many because it’s on the Bloomsday route.

Some members say the church may not have endured had it not been for its pastor. Brockway came to Westminster in 1987 after becoming the director of Christian education for four area Presbyterian churches. Formerly the secretary at Mission Community Presbyterian Church, the congregation in which she grew up, Brockway participated in a program that trained to her to become a commissioned lay pastor, also known as a CLP. The program helps churches like Westminster by providing leaders willing to work for less money than a full-time ordained pastor.

As one of only about 10 CLPs in the Inland Northwest Presbytery, Brockway puts in all the hours of a regular pastor but gets paid only part time.

“This has been a wonderful place to serve,” said Brockway, whose many duties at the church include playing guitar while the children sing on Wednesday nights at Logos. “It’s been a blessing – a good place to worship and to seek God.”

Throughout the years, members have relied on one another for support and have used their outreach into the community as a source of strength.

“People here really care,” said Linda Kromm, who joined Westminster in 1999 when she was a student at Whitworth College. “It’s about friendship, fellowship and community. You know you can count on people here.”