A16 Sunday, September 29, 1991 The Pittsburgh Press Clairton church ofDMS fame returns with clean slate anybody jobs except the people who worked for DMS. It was because it was ineffective that they were against it." Looking back, longtime members say they can see the hand of God at work. Before DMS. "there was a lot of apathy in the church. That revitalized it," said Rose Hogan, the church secretary.
"We drew together as a family. People are very dedicated now. They are generous with their offering, they don't miss a service. God works in mysterious ways," Mrs. Gahagen said.
DMS raised important issues and rightly condemned the corporate policy of shifting their industrial base overseas, Longan said. "That is not to condone skunk oil. I think they did things in this church that cannot be done in the name of Christ. But they were the catalyst for a number of efforts by the churches to respond to needs here," he said. "For Christians, there is no such thing as tragedy, because the story we nave to tell is a resurrection story.
And the story that this church is going to tell is a resurrection story. God used the cross. I guess he could use the DMS." chial school in Brooklyn until a national church official asked him to consider Clairton. He started the first church choir in 20 years and the first Sunday school, confirmation class and acolyte program since the siege. A Vacation Bible School drew 25 children, only two of whom were from the congregation.
After losing 11 members since 1987, in the past year it gained 12 for a total of 114. "These homes aren't empty," "longtime member Mary Gahagen said of Clairton. "There are people in them who are unchurched. Even if we aren't a prosperous community, people stUl need the church." The DMS did not make members skittish about social ministry, Longan said. The church makes monthly donations to the Clairton Ecumenical Food Bank and is helping to organize a Christian health clinic where low income people can get medical care and spiritual counsel, he said.
"We have to be part of the movement in Clairton to try to put the city back on its feet," Longan said. "It was their belief that DMS didn't really help the unemployed. It didn't feed anybody. It didn't get Vi 14" looking forward to great things." Roth's protest group called itself the Denominational Ministry Strategy or DMS. The group protested unemployment by disrupting church services that steel executives attended and putting dead fish in Mellon Bank safe deposit boxes.
In October 1984, after a majority of Trinity's 145 members asked the bishop to intervene, the synod suspended Roth as pastor. When he refused to leave the church, the synod got a court order to force him out. Roth barricaded himself inside until he was arrested on Nov. 13 for contempt of court. Some of his supporters then locked themselves inside.
The synod declared the church defunct. On Dec. 16, DMS members threw skunk oil bombs into a children's Christmas party at Shadyside Presbyterian Church. Two suspects fled to the Clairton church. As cameras clicked and rolled, on Jan.4, 1985, sheriff's deputies broke in the rear door of the church and arrested those inside.
Roth was eventually defrocked, but pressed both civil courts and the synod for the return of the church until summer 1988. He now lives in Kansas and had "no comment whatsoever" about his former church. No one in the Roth faction of the old congregation has returned to the church. Roth's former mentor Charles Honeywell, mission developer of Confessing Synod Ministries as DMS is now called has heard about the church's new look. "It's very symbolic.
It means they cleaned up the outside," he said. "I have been preaching forgiveness like nobody's business," Longan said. "There is a lot of regret and sorrow over the pain and the people that were hurt. But the chains are off the doors. Even the people on the other side that I speak to and there are some former members that I see are working to put it behind them and to try to knit back up the old friendships." Longan, 39, taught music and the Bible at an all-black Lutheran paro By Ann Rodgers-Melnick The Pittsburgh Press Reporters from the Washington Post, the New York Times and "60 Minutes" usually noted that Trinity Lutheran Church in Clairton was built of "brown stone" or "black granite." But after 53 years worth of mill soot was scrubbed away, members of what is now the Lutheran Church of the Holy Spirit discovered it was hewn from cream-colored sandstone.
Next, they hope to replace the glass doors on which friends of their former pastor etched a swastika and "666." In the winter of 1984-85 those doors were chained shut as the Rev. D. Douglas Roth and members of the radical pro-labor group DMS held out against the sheriff and the bishop. After nine people were jailed, the church was boarded up for 18 months. Clairton residents were still asking, "Did that church ever reopen?" when the struggling congregation hired the Rev.
Leo Longan a year ago. "Cleaning the building is something you might think is a big expensive job, not the best use of money. But we wanted to do something very public, very conspicuous, to say to the community that we are alive and trying to cleanse our hearts of pain and bitterness," he said. Last week Bishop Donald McCoid of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America gave back the deed that his predecessor revoked in 1984. "The new pastor has really gotten the place moving," said the Rev.
Edward Kappeler, McCoid's assistant. "He has determined that the church is going to shrug off its persona as a loser and really become a vital influence in Clairton. You would have had to be there to experience the change in feeling and attitude among the church members. They were upbeat and I PITTSBURGH CORNING 1 5-YEAR I WARRANTY JQ.REDI8SET. I i ---riir PRODUCTS ADD SECURITY, INSULATION PRIVACY AND STYLE! IDEAL FOR BAsem*nTS, KITCHENS, BATHS AND MUCH MOREI Class Block Windows Installed Quickly And Witk Lass Mass! Since 1969 IDPITTSBUnGIl I TRUST THE PROFESSIONALS I PROMPT, COURTEOUS SERVICE I UNSURPASSED EXPERTISE I FREE IN-HOME ESTIMATES I 821-4940 I INSTALLED WINDOWS ONLY NO OTHER DISCOUNTS SUPPLY PWOR SALES EXCLUDED ENDS 111691 Glass Block Company Anay SiarnesTne Pirtsburgh Press The Rev.
Leo Longan has been "preaching forgiveness like nobody's business" as he seeks to unite Clairton church that was divided over DMS. The church has started to gain membership again. 21 00 Babco*ck Pa. 15209 CI WW Kerrie Carothers. Allison Park Melissa Weide, Canonsburg Rachel Barnes.
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