A Vivid Legacy
The stained glass windows of Mountain Brook Presbyterian Church need our help.
By Ann McEwen
Growing up, the stained glass windows at Mountain Brook Presbyterian Church were as iconic an image of home to me as the Old Mill House across from Jemison Park. I attended preschool at MBPC, and my children attend today. I remember being small, sitting in the chapel and staring up at the rising organ pipes and the bright windows. As with most churches, the sanctuary gives a sense of lifting. Raising your eyes to the heavens. Opening your chest to the world. There is a sense of vulnerability even as there is a feeling of security, of comfort.
When I was small, the windows were bright, shining. I didn’t understand the stories they told, but I understood the feeling they gave me. It’s a feeling that is replicated every time I step into the sanctuary today, only now, perhaps it’s muted.
Some of that is the result of the intervening years – a five year old’s sense of wonder isn’t something that can be fully replicated as an adult. But some of it is simply physical. The coverings on the exterior of the windows – lovingly installed 40 years ago as a means to protect them – have aged. Significantly.
Window frames placed in sanctuary for the ten stained glass windows.
(October 1968)
The windows themselves are as they ever were. Vibrant, proud and inspiring. But they are dim. The protective coverings have yellowed and weathered, and the windows – crafted to catch the light – are no longer allowed to shine as they are meant to do.
And so, it’s now time for our community to step up, and restore these windows to their original beauty.
It’s a familiar story. These very windows have been inspiring the community to band together in one way or another for nearly 80 years. Originally, the windows were installed when the church was located in downtown Birmingham, on the northeast corner of Sixth Avenue North and 18th Street. Installation began in 1947, and was completed in 1959. Ten years later, after Red Mountain Expressway was built and much of the congregation moved “Over the Mountain,” the church moved to its current location on Brookwood Road. They built their new sanctuary around the stained glass windows, painstakingly brought from their building on Sixth Avenue. On September 21, 1969, the completed structure so familiar to us today was formally dedicated with worship, and the vibrant windows depicting the life of Christ we’ve all seen when driving down Brookwood Road, proudly stood as a symbol of faith and community.
Or caught tadpoles in Fuller Creek as it skirts gently along the property’s edge. Maybe, today, you walk your dog around the trail loop circling the church grounds. At the very least you’ve driven past the church on Brookwood Road a thousand times. You can picture the shape of the sanctuary right now, but maybe you can’t quite picture what the windows look like.
Let’s band together to change that. The church is raising the funds necessary to replace the current coverings with new, clear coverings that will allow the windows to display their true glory. Imagine driving along Brookwood Road at night and seeing the church lit from within, its windows visible and glowing with life. It’s something I would love to see, to recapture even a small part of that sense of wonder I felt as a child.
Whether you attend the church or not, this place is a central part of our community.
You may never have attended a service at Mountain Brook Presbyterian Church. Perhaps you’ve never been to a community supper in the Fellowship Hall or sent your children to the Preschool. But if you live in Mountain Brook, and especially if you live in Brookwood Forest, there’s a good chance you learned to ride a bike in the shadow of those windows, pedaling careful circles in the parking lot.
Photos from 1968 provided by
Miss Wilhelmina J. Mcpheron in 1981
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