HISTORY OF COMMUNITY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH - 1910 TO 1980
Growth
The Official Board, with prior approval of
the District Superintendent, approved the purchase of land in a special
Quarterly Conference held at Eastwood Methodist Church on October
10.1952. Five hundred dollars was authorized to be paid as an option to
buy the lot from Mr. Simms. By November 18. a total of $2.000 had been
raised by the congregation for purchase of the lot.
Rollin Rosser, a specialist in church architecture. was selected to draw up preliminary architectural drawings of the desired facility in accordance with the general specifications and financial limitations supplied by Mr. Gustin and Pastor Imhausen. A meeting was held in the architect's office on November 29 1953, to review these drawings with Dr. Fink, representing the Church Extension Headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The first estimate for the Religious Education building of the Master Plan totaled $135,000, a figure much too high for the target expenditure that the Building Committee felt the congregation could support even with outside help. The Educational Building, 94 feet long by 38 feet wide, would be used both for Religious Education classes in the basement and worship service in the sanctuary until such time as the sanctuary of the Master Plan could be built. By shortening the length of the building by ten feet and by simplifying and clarifying some of the construction specifications, the price was finally reduced to $82.000. The new building's style of architecture was to be contemporary.
Financing for the new construction was difficult, but District Superintendent Robert Kennedy finally was able to obtain from the Conference Church Extension Committee for a loan of $30.000. Grace Methodist Church agreed to underwrite a loan of $40,000 toward the new building, and the Board of Missions agreed to make a donation of $6.000. All these financial commitments were contingent on raising approximately $18,000 by the local congregation. Accordingly, a financial campaign oriented toward a one hundred week (two year) giving program was initiated in early July 1953.
Meanwhile, early in 1953, the Official Board of Eastwood Methodist Church voted to change the church's name to Community Methodist and establish a second Sunday School site in the Gun Club at the corner of Kemp and Shedbourne Avenue. It further stipulated that the branch of Community located at Sperling and Woodley would relocate on the new site at Burkhardt and Meyer Avenue when the new building was completed. Church School and worship conditions at both branches were far from ideal; nevertheless, membership and attendance in both grew remarkably during 1953 and 1954. In late 1953 the satellite Sunday School was moved to Kemp Elementary School on Shedbourne Avenue, where it remained until the new facility was opened.