By Ryan Berry

DailyAdvocate.com

GREENVILLE — Pastor Andrew Gilman and his congregation celebrated the recent renovations at Greenville’s First Presbyterian Church on Saturday, March 16. The church held an open house and ribbon cutting that showcased the recently completed project.

Pastor Gilman came to the church in 2019 and almost immediately began having conversations with members of the church about how to begin to bring in a younger congregation. “It became evident to us that we were not set up structurally to handle or to care about families very well,” he said. He pointed to the lack of updated spaces with technology for younger people.

Once they realized the need, they developed revitalization programming that reached out to younger families. “From there, we went to the congregation to say if we’re really going to set ourselves in a spot to receive these families, we need to do something on our end. So, they got on board.”

Gilman said they began working with Garmann-Miller for the design of the renovations and Bruns Construction did the work. The new furnishings came from Innovative Office Solutions.

The church began the renovation work in August 2023 and the work was completed at the end of January 2024. Gilman said he is very pleased with the work that was done, and the congregation is excited about the new look.

Greenville First Presbyterian Church hosted its denominational meeting in early February when 130 to 150 Presbyterians from three states meeting there.

Gilman believes the church is moving in the right direction to get younger. He came in as COVID hit. At that time, they were down to 35 people in attendance. They have now more than doubled that number. “Half that is younger people that have come since then,” he said. “It’s slow and it’s one family at a time, but it is happening,” he added.

The church was founded in 1821, 12 years after the city was founded. The main sanctuary was built in 1889. Very little was done to that part of the building. “We tried our best not to touch the original corpus of the building. We did go down the hall and re-carpet,” he said. The building that was built in 1986 received the most attention for renovations. Gilman said he does have plans to complete some restoration work. There is wood paneling that was installed previously that was not original to the building. He wants to remove the paneling and restore that section to what was original to the building. “There’s some beautiful architecture under that and we’d like to expose it all,” said Gilman. The building still has the original stained glass and original beams from 1889.

The church will be hosting the Festival of the Risen King on Saturday, April 27, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., in the church’s parking lot. They will have bounce houses, music and food. All are invited to attend.

To contact Daily Advocate Editor Ryan Berry, email [email protected].