Our History

Reformed theology has gained tremendous traction in Christian circles in the last few decades. Today, many young churches identify themselves with the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, and popular Christian authors and speakers such as R. C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Tim Keller, and Joel Beeke have made a Reformed articulation of biblical faith accessible to a broad audience.

West Sayville Reformed Bible Church stands confidently and gratefully in this Reformation lineage. But while many younger members have joined us after discovering the Reformed faith through personal study, Reformed doctrine is not new to our congregation. The Protestant Reformation has been integral to our identity since our beginnings in this community almost a century and a half ago. What follows is a summary of this congregation’s history.

The Protestant Reformation was a religious movement that swept across Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Although the Reformation had many dimensions, its central purpose was to call churches to return to the Word of God, not human ceremonies and traditions, as the basis for Christian doctrine and life. Reformed congregations sprang up across Germany and the Low Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg). Reformed believers also gathered in France, where they were called Huguenots, and in the British Isles, where they were called Covenanters or Presbyterians. These European immigrants brought the Reformed faith with them to America. In general, Reformed and Presbyterian churches are the oldest congregations in the United States today.

Beginning around 1850, a stream of immigrants from several fishing villages in the Netherlands settled on Long Island’s south shore in the vicinity of Oakdale and West Sayville. Many hoped to escape poverty and famine in Europe. Some also came to America in the hope of a purer religious life, as the state church of the Netherlands had begun to depart from its Reformation roots. One early settler of West Sayville, Bastiaan Broere, wrote:

<blockquote>It is highly probable that it was precisely this circumstance [the declining state of religion in the Netherlands] that exerted a great influence on my heart and thoughts to draw my eye on America, like so many in those days. Rumor had it there was complete freedom of religion, and many pious people had already gone there; . . . I rejoiced at the flourishing state in which the church was there, even as the Netherlands seemed to me more and more to have forsaken the truth and left God. This and this alone was the only reason that I felt affection to leave my home country; my temporal interests absolutely did not compel me to go; on the contrary, I was very disgusted when considering them, because I feared that I would have to earn my living in America with agriculture, and I hated this, since I had been on the water from my childhood. But my desire to have fellowship there with God’s people, who were also my people, overcame that objection.</blockquote>

Whether motivated by economic or religious reasons, the Dutch established a vibrant and close-knit community in West Sayville and soon dominated the local economy by fishing for clams, oysters, and eels. The Long Island Maritime Museum on West Avenue memorializes the achievements of the Dutchmen on the Great South Bay.

Along with their homes and businesses, the Dutch settlers in West Sayville also established churches. The oldest of these was the First Reformed Church, founded in 1866. However, some members of the community grew dissatisfied with the spiritual life of this congregation, which departed from the historic practices of the Reformed faith. As a result, a small group petitioned to form a second congregation in West Sayville with the goal of “spreading of the pure Reformed doctrine and Church government, which tends to the glory of God and the salvation of souls.” The True Holland Reformed Church of Sayville, New York, began worship services on September 17, 1876.

The new church changed names multiple times. The area where the Dutch had settled was known variously as Sayville, Greenville, and Tuckertown before West Sayville became its lasting name. The congregation also belonged to a smaller and more conservative denomination than the First Reformed Church, and its denomination’s name would change multiple times in the coming years as well. It would be more than a century before this congregation adopted the name West Sayville Reformed Bible Church.

In 1878 the congregation constructed a building on Atlantic Avenue, a fraction of a mile from the shoreline. That building would be enlarged and renovated several times, serving as the church’s home for the next 90 years. Services in this little building were simple and conservative, consisting mainly in preaching, prayer, and the singing of psalms—all in the Dutch language. Finances were tight. Quarrels were plentiful. It was fourteen years before the church successfully hired a minister, and he lasted only five years. He fared better than his replacement, who managed only two years in West Sayville before leaving of “nervous exhaustion.” Yet the records also reveal gestures of generosity on the part of the members and the ministers who served them. In 1897, aware of the church’s serious financial troubles, “L. Van Vessem offered to do the caretaker job for no pay, providing other members would take turns in keeping an eye on children in church who did not behave themselves during the services.” And when the consistory temporarily called a missionary pastor in 1898, offering to pay him five dollars a week plus residence in the parsonage, the minister replied that he would be fully satisfied with three dollars.

In the first years of the 20th century, the congregation grew and stabilized. But the church faced a growing language barrier: the immigrants’ children, educated in the American schools, could comprehend less and less of the Dutch worship services and catechism instruction. The church responded by calling Rev. Meindert Botbyl, who began a bilingual ministry in West Sayville in 1912. Gradually, English became the language of choice for youth group meetings, catechism classes, and evening services. By 1931, regular worship in the Dutch language had been discontinued, and the last Dutch sermon this congregation has heard was delivered by a visiting minister in 1946. Of course, although it now worshiped in English, the congregation was still thoroughly Dutch, and for many years to come most of its members would live on the same few residential streets that comprised the hamlet of West Sayville.

In the 1920’s West Sayville had become a thriving maritime village, and its prosperity was immediately visible in its churches. In 1926 this congregation—known by then as the West Sayville Christian Reformed Church—consisted of 225 members, including seventy-two young people in catechism classes. It offered three worship services every Sunday and had a budget totaling about $50,000 in today’s money. The next 25 years of its history would generally be characterized by steady growth in a variety of areas. Rev. Jacob Cupido’s 14-year pastorate, the longest in the church’s history to date, brought valuable stability to the congregation.

The Reformed tradition includes a strong focus on Christian education, and the West Sayville church stressed this by requiring its young people to study Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the Canons of Dort, in addition to offering Sunday school for children and adults. Rev. Cupido focused particularly on mentoring the young men of the congregation, many of whom would grow into the leaders of the church in the decades that followed. Many women of the church belonged to the Ladies’ Sewing Circle, which used its talents for the benefit of the poor, or to the Priscilla Society, which focused on Bible study and evangelism.

The 1930’s and 1940’s also saw growing support for the founding of a Christian school in West Sayville. On March 1st, 1944, “a group of people met in the chapel of the Christian Reformed Church for the purpose of forming a Society for Christian Instruction.” Within two years the congregation was convinced: “It was decided to start a school in the fall of 1946 with God’s help.” For the first year, a total of twelve students in grades one through five were taught in the church chapel. In 1947 the society purchased a parcel of land on nearby Rollstone Avenue, and church members provided volunteer labor to erect a school building from the ground up. “Finally,” the records comment, “in December 1948 the school was completed up-to-date in every detail, a building which stands as a monument of God’s grace, and we thank God for leading and guiding us and for giving us willing hands and hearts for the cause of Christian education.” Today, the West Sayville Christian School provides a Christ-centered education for all grades in its original building on Rollstone Avenue.

As to the little church on Atlantic Avenue, the Lord continued to bless it as well. With the year 1951 came the opportunity for the congregation to celebrate God’s faithfulness for seventy-five years. Rev. Harold Bossenbroek, the church’s pastor at the time, took a moment to reflect on the Lord’s goodness:

<blockquote>Since 1876 the Word of God has been proclaimed and is still being sounded forth in accord with the historic, orthodox interpretation. Christ and Him crucified is the center of our preaching and the theme of our song. Time has not changed our conception of the Good News nor robbed us of the songs of Zion. The lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places and our heritage was preserved for us. We are still a church in the proper and true sense. How shall we account for this singular blessing?

The Psalmist has the answer for us when he writes, “Jehovah loveth the gates of Zion, more than all the dwellings of Jacob.” Jehovah loves His church. He loves her with an eternal love that knows no bounds. We can but exclaim, ‘Not unto us O Lord of heaven, But unto Thee be glory given.” We can but sing, “Zion founded on the mountains, God, thy Maker, loves thee well.”</blockquote>

Even in the 1950’s, much had changed in the little town of West Sayville. What had begun as an insular Dutch community of simple seamen was gradually becoming integrated into the broader New York metropolis. With the increasing suburbanization of Long Island’s south shore came new opportunities for evangelism. In this decade, the consistory called a seminarian, Fred Bultman, to begin a Sunday school in the nearby community of East Islip, which at that time lacked a Protestant church. Eventually this Sunday school grew into a church plant. Worship services were held beginning on January 5, 1958, in a Democratic Club building and later a renovated tavern. Members of the West Sayville congregation supported the plant with their prayers, presence, and gifts. By 1959, property had been purchased for a brand-new church building and parsonage in East Islip, which were completed by West Sayville contractors Adrian Newhouse and John Boogertman by the spring of 1962. Six decades later, the East Islip congregation, now known as Christ Community Church, stands at its original location on the corner of Montauk Highway and the Southern State Parkway as yet another tribute to God’s faithfulness.

At the same time as the plant in East Islip was taking root, the West Sayville Christian Reformed Church had to face the problem of its own need for a bigger worship space. Its original building on Atlantic Avenue had grown inadequate for the needs of an expanding congregation of more than 50 households. Across Montauk Highway and right next to the West Sayville Christian School lay a few empty acres. The land was a small portion of the old Bourne Estate which at one time sprawled over the districts of West Sayville and Oakdale. The Consistory appointed a committee to investigate whether the Rollstone Avenue property could be purchased. In 1958, they received word to their astonishment that Mrs. Hard (Mrs. F. Bourne Thayer) had decided to donate the land to the congregation.

Plans for a new church building moved rapidly forward. The old property on Atlantic Avenue was sold in 1962 as the congregation discussed the best design for a building that would supply the church’s needs. Five years and about $215,000 later (about $1.6 million today), the new West Sayville Christian Reformed Church was complete. The first worship service at 31 Rollstone Avenue was held on Christmas Eve, 1967. At the building’s dedication service, the council rose and read these words:

<blockquote>We, the office-bearers of this congregation, recognizing that there has been committed to us a sacred trust, covenant together, sacredly to guard, uphold and perpetuate the scriptural doctrines and principles upon which this church is founded and by which it has maintained through all its history down to the present day; that we will promote the peace and unity of this church to the end, that this House of God may ever serve as a place of worship of the Triune God; for the preaching of the Word of God in all of its fullness, and for the proclamation of our Lord Jesus Christ as the only Savior of men.</blockquote>

“The proclamation of our Lord Jesus Christ as the only Savior of men” was furthered by the church’s decision in 1975 to support a foreign missionary in Japan, a home missionary in Texas, and a local ministry of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Over the next several years the congregation would also cooperate with the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC) to sponsor multiple Asian refugee families displaced by the Vietnam War.

To celebrate its hundredth anniversary, the West Sayville Christian Reformed Church held a Centennial Service of Praise on August 25, 1976, featuring Dr. Joel Nederhood, radio minister of the Back to God Hour. As the centennial booklet emphasized, the church “is not just another human organization, but the product of God’s abiding faithfulness and love. He, the great Potter, has molded out of the clay a sinful people as a congregation to the praise of His glory.” However, the same booklet also warned that “even greater challenges lie ahead” even as “the opportunities for sharing our faith in God and our heritage have expanded.” Indeed, that vow taken by the council in 1968 would soon be put to the test.

Some of these challenges stemmed merely from the geographic and demographic changes transforming Suffolk County and the rest of Long Island. A series of storms in the mid-20th century had ravaged Fire Island and the Great South Bay, putting an end to the thriving oyster culture that had sustained the West Sayville economy. With their traditional means of employment cut off, Dutch families had to look for other lines of work, and many of them moved off Long Island in order to do so. Faced with the high costs of living in the New York metropolis, many retirees also moved off the island to places like Michigan and North Carolina. College students, likewise, tended to settle in other parts of the country after graduation. Today, there are probably more people of West Sayville descent in areas like Grand Rapids, MI and Pantego/Terra Ceia, NC than there are in West Sayville. Over the course of 50 years, the West Sayville congregation diminished from almost 300 members to less than 100. Where Dutch surnames once dominated Rollstone Avenue, today the church is one of the last remaining testaments to West Sayville’s Dutch history, and its membership now reflects a cross-section of Long Island’s ethnic diversity.

Other challenges cut closer to West Sayville’s theological heritage. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, a growing number of voices in the West Sayville church’s governing denomination began to express views on science and sexuality that conflicted with the historic positions of the church of Jesus Christ. Over the course of a decade or more, the West Sayville consistory, along with other conservative churches, challenged the denomination’s broader assemblies to reconsider these views in light of Scripture and the Reformed confessions. The passage of time brought no resolution to these theological concerns, and by 1997 the West Sayville congregation had voted to secede from the denomination to which it had belonged since its founding 121 years earlier. This was the decision that led to the congregation renaming itself Seaview Reformed Bible Church for a short time, and then West Sayville Reformed Bible Church.

In 1998 the congregation voted to join the newly formed federation of United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA), a group of churches with a history and theology that closely resembled West Sayville’s. Today, West Sayville Reformed Bible Church is one of the oldest congregations in a federation of more than 120 churches and almost 25,000 members across the United States and Canada.

Although the congregation’s numbers have decreased, its energy for education, evangelism, and fellowship has not. WSRBC has led numerous Vacation Bible School summer programs for local children. In the community, WSRBC promotes Christian education through continued support of the West Sayville Christian School, as well as through opening its facility to a local Christian homeschooling group. The church is also a longtime member of Reformed Youth Services, an international educational ministry, and its high-school age members regularly attend regional and national youth events. The congregation has hosted concerts by multiple traveling ensembles from Geneva College, a Reformed institution of higher education in Pennsylvania. Since 2013 WSRBC has sponsored a seminarian, Daniel Ragusa, to pursue an M.Div. at Mid-America Reformed Seminary and a Ph.D. at Westminster Theological Seminary. WSRBC has also supported Christian education for all adults by hosting a series of Fall Bible Conferences, which brought leading Reformed theologians such as Cornelis Venema, James White, Anthony Curto, W. Robert Godfrey, and Joseph Pipa to West Sayville.

In the area of evangelism, WSRBC continues to broaden its burden for the people of Long Island and the greater New York metropolitan area. In 2003, West Sayville Reformed Bible Church agreed to become the overseeing consistory for a Reformed church plant in Manhattan, led by Rev. Paul Murphy. That plant organized as a full-fledged congregation of the URCNA, Messiah’s Reformed Fellowship, in 2012. Now Messiah’s Reformed Fellowship is supervising its own church plant, Grace Reformed Church of Jersey City, under the ministry of Rev. Sam Perez. WSRBC also maintains a close relationship with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), a Bible-honoring sister denomination heavily involved in church planting in the New York metropolitan area.

As a charter member of Reformed Mission Services, WSRBC hosted four short-term mission projects between 2012 and 2014, which required members to provide food and accommodation for volunteers from across the country—major undertakings for a small congregation. In 2012, members of the congregation also volunteered to host delegates and provide accommodation for the eighth synod of the United Reformed Churches of North America in Nyack, New York.

Today the church enjoys the close and intimate fellowship unique to a small congregation. For many years, WSRBC sponsored a church softball league and organized an annual camping trip to Warwick, New York. Members still hold impromptu game nights and hiking expeditions, albeit less officially. A recent and beloved tradition is WSRBC’s annual Seafood Festival (not to be confused with the Long Island Maritime Museum’s annual event of the same name, but equally delicious), which draws friends and neighbors from the community together for an afternoon of food and fellowship. Scallops and baked clams offer just a taste of the history and heritage of this congregation’s hometown.

Although much has changed in West Sayville in the last 150 years, its heritage of faith remains inescapable. The First Reformed Church of West Sayville is now New Life Community Church, located on Lakeland Avenue just north of Sayville. The old building of the Christian Reformed Church on Atlantic Avenue is still standing and in use by another congregation. The West Sayville Christian School is continuing its ministry of education. And West Sayville Reformed Bible Church is still here, not through its wisdom or special gifts but through God’s providence.

The words recorded in the church’s 75th anniversary booklet still ring as true as ever today: “We may say that, although so often we were unfaithful, the Lord was always faithful and has blessed us richly, so that today we as a congregation can look back and say, ‘Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.’ And as we have briefly reflected upon the past, may we look steadfastly to the future, with a prayer upon our lips that God may keep us faithful in our walk of life as a church, and that finally we may reach that city which hath foundations whose Builder and Maker is God, and there receive that welcome word, ‘Well done.’”

Michael R. Kearney, July 14, 2020

<h2>Further Reading on the Religious History of West Sayville</h2>

Broere, Bastiaan. Korte beschriving van het leven van en de wonderbare leidingen Gods met Bastiaan Broere, in Nederland en in Amerika. Amsterdam: J. A. Wormser, [1887].

Kearney, Michael R. “Marking 150 Years in West Sayville (Part 1).” Christian Renewal 31, no. 15 (July 10, 2013): 14–17.

Kearney, Michael R. “Marking 150 Years in West Sayville (Part 2).” Christian Renewal 31, no. 16/17 (July 31/August 21, 2013): 22–24.

Kearney, Michael R. “Marking 150 Years in West Sayville (Part 3).” Christian Renewal 32, no. 1 (September 11, 2013): 18–20.

Mathes, Glenda. “West Sayville Reformed Bible Church on Long Island: Fish Aplenty; the Fishermen Few.” Christian Renewal (June 10, 2015): 6–8.

Taylor, Lawrence J. Dutchmen on the Bay: The Ethnohistory of a Contractual Community. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.