Wayside Presbyterian Church will celebrate it's 63rd annual homecoming Sunday, Oct. 5, with the 25-piece Hamm Brass Ensemble from Hamm, Germany, Chattanooga's Sister City. They will perform three numbers in the 11 a.m. homecoming worship service and then will give an hour-long free public concert at 7 p.m. in the sanctuary.
The ensemble includes nine trumpets, three euphoniums, five trombones, three horns, one tuba and a pianist and an organist. The concert will range from modern to classical to folksy. Members of the group will be lodging in the homes of Signal Mountain families for three nights. They plan to visit a nursing home in Chattanooga and sightsee before continuing their USA tour in Washington, D.C., New York City and Atlanta.
Wayside has two special connections wih Germany. Walden Alderman Elizabeth Akins, while visiting in Germany, became friends with Wencke Wilke, who organized the Ensemble trip. The other connection is the pastor, Dr. Marshall St. John and his wife, who have visited several times with their daughter and son-in-law, Rebekah and Sloan Rogers, who live in Munich where Mr. Rogers is an engineer with EMW.
Wayside began in 1917 when a community Sunday school was organized in the old Fairmount School building across the street from Wayside's present location. Land was given by Mrs. Z.C. Patten in 1937 and construction begun in 1939 with foundation stones from a building in downtown Chattanooga where the post office now stands.
The Rev. Willis Rice became the first full-time minister in 1944 and Wayside Presbyterian Church officially began with 38 charter members. Construction on the church, with stones of the building donated from the land of Elder E.A. Barker, was finally completed in July of 1949. The walls are two feet thick of solid stone, 24 feet high. The bronze bell in the bell tower was cast in Cincinnati in 1857 and was used previously in a Chattanooga church and a fire station. It is inscribed with Bible drawings and weighs 525 pounds.
The Sunday school wing was built in 1964 and named for Dr. John Morrison, a former missionary to Africa who was pastor of Wayside from 1959-1965. The church changed denominations in 1973 to the more conservative Presbyterian Church in America. The church supports about two dozen missionary families around the world as well as numerous outreaches in the local area.
Dr. Richard Harris pastored the church from 1975 to 1986 and was responsible for starting Wayside's Christian Preschool and annual missions conference. Since 1946 the church has had 11 pastors. Dr. St. John, the present pastor, began ministering at Wayside in 1989. He is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute, Faith Theological Seminary and Covenant Theological Seminary. He has served as moderator of the Tennessee Valley Presbytery of the PCA and as chairman of the Theological Examining Committee of the TVP.
From a bequest from the late Margaret Phillips in 2002 an additional educational wing was constructed. The new building provided an elevator, restrooms, library, youth activity room, nursery rooms and storage space. A large playground with a small basketball court was constructed. Stained glass windows in the original sanctuary were preserved and moved to the new addition which was designed to blend in with the existing construction.