RENSSELAERVILLE — The Rensselaerville Presbyterian Church continues its summer tradition of having clergy of different faiths deliver sermons on a common theme. The 2019 theme is “Finding Joy.”

Services are held from June 30 through Sept. 1 at 11 a.m. in the historic church located on Main Street (Route 351) in Rensselaerville.  Everyone is welcome to these services:

— June 30: “Finding Joy,” Rev. Stewart Pattison, moderator, Rensselaerville Presbyterian Church;

— July 7: “The Joy of Healing in Community,” Rev. Dr. Amaury Tañón-Santos, Synod Networker, Synod of the Northeast, East Syracuse, New York;

— July 14: “Make a Joyful Noise,” Rabbi Deborah Gordon, Congregation Berith Sholom, Troy;

— July 21: “Good Pleasure,” Elder Barbara G. Wheeler, former president, Auburn Theological Seminary, New York City;

— July 28: “What Does Jesus Know About Joy?” Rev. Dr. Rick Spalding, retired chaplain, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts;

— Aug. 4: “Discovering Joy in a Root-Shocked World,” Rev. Peter Cook, executive director, New York State Council of Churches, Albany;

— Aug. 11: “Approaching the World,” Rev. Kate Forer, senior pastor, Presbyterian-New England Congregational Church, Saratoga Springs;

— Aug. 18: “You Give Them Something to Eat,” Rev. Dr. Roxanne Jones Booth, co-pastor, Riverview Baptist Church, Coeymans;

— Aug. 25: “Joy Is Different Than Happiness,” Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper, senior pastor, Judson Memorial Church, New York City; and

— Sept. 1: “Joy, a Firm and Quiet Strength,” Sister Joan Scanlon, O.P., coordinator of Dominican Ministries, Albertus Magnus College, New Haven, Connecticut.

The tradition of summer-only services at the Presbyterian Church in Rensselaerville goes back more than 100 years. For a short period in the second half of the 19th Century, the village was a lively industrial town as the first site of the Huyck Woolen Mills.

When founder and Presbyterian Church member F. C. Huyck Sr. moved his mill to Albany, he did not sever ties with the village or the church. But, as jobs left with the mill, so did many of the village residents, leaving the church without enough members to maintain a year-round pastor.

However, the Huyck family returned each year to vacation and provided for a pastor during their stay. It was F. C. Huyck Sr.’s granddaughter, Katharine Huyck Elmore, who in the middle of the 20th Century expanded the vision of the summer services to other faith traditions and invited ministers, rabbis, priests, and nuns to fill the pulpit.

The Rensselaerville Presbyterian Church is a nationally recognized example of Greek Revival architecture dating from the 1840s and is listed on both the National and State Registers of Historic Places.

More information about each week’s guest preacher and the church may be found on its website: www.rvillepres.org. Comments and questions may be sent to .