The Silverton Community Seventh-day Adventist Church is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
Back in 1911, when the population of Silverton was a mere 3,000, two osteopathic physicians, Drs. Oliver and Etta Heisley came to the area to set up practice. At that time, there were only two members of the Adventist Church in the vicinity.
The Heisleys attended the Silverton Christian Church, a Sunday-keeping church, in order to become acquainted with the people in the area for business purposes as well as for Christian association. The pastor and the Heisleys became friends, and the pastor’s wife became one of their patients. She, in turn, referred other members of the congregation to them. Soon their practice grew and before long 12 people were having Bible studies with them and attending their Sabbath School.
Shortly afterwards, the Oregon Conference of Seventh-day Adventists set up a large tent on the property at 419 E. Main St. As a result, on Aug. 19, 1911, 19 charter members were baptized and the Silverton Seventh-day Adventist congregation became a reality.
In the fall of 1911 the congregation rented Woodman Hall on Third Street. Eventually a lot was purchased at the foot of the hill on Oak Street for $400, and the first Seventh-day Adventist church was built with a seating capacity of 40. Ellen G. White, a prominent Seventh-day Adventist author and leader, had advised that any congregation with six children should have a school. Dr. Heisley encouraged the congregation to follow this advice, which it did.
They bought some desks in Portland, hired a teacher, and had 29 pupils when school opened in the fall. Before the school year was over they had to build another room on the church for a school, and hire another teacher.
The church continued in the building until 1935, when several new families moved into the community. With a membership of 65, the church was overcrowded and the building needed major repairs. In the spring of 1938 it purchased the vacant Congregational Church at Second and Park Streets. The price was $1,700, and that included facilities for a church school.
The Park Street property continued to be the church home into the 1970s, when it was purchased by the Church of the Nazarenes. In May 1973, a holly orchard was available for $8,000 at 1159 Oak St. It is still the site of the present Silverton Community Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Phase One of the new facility was four classrooms, a multipurpose room, two lavatories, a church office and a kitchen. It was completed in April 1975, at a cost of $90,000. The congregation met in the multipurpose room.
The ground breaking ceremony for the sanctuary took place on Oct. 1, 1979. The contractor, Charles Byram, is still an active member of the congregation. Much of the work was done by volunteer members of the congregation, and the church was dedicated, debt free, in April 1983. Membership at that time stood at 174 and the seating capacity of the church was 386.
In 1933, the Dorcas Society, now known as Adventist Community Services, was organized by the congregation. Today under the auspices of Silverton Together, it has become the clothing repository for the Silverton community. Bread, donated by Safeway, is distributed each Thursday morning to those in need.
The Silverton Community Seventh-day Adventist church is a member of a world-wide church of approximately 17 million. Known for its healthy lifestyle and the many octogenarians that occupy its pews, the church is renowned for its robust medical outreach, where emphasis is placed on the mind and soul, as well as the body.
The mission of this Bible-based church is expressed in its name: It observes Saturday, the seventh-day of the week, as the sabbath, and proclaims the soon-coming advent of Jesus Christ to this world.
