Celebrating 100 years 1924-2024
The roots of North Broadway United Methodist Church go back to the early 1800s, when Methodists were among the first European settlers in Clinton Township, a five square mile area between Fifth Avenue and Rathbone Road, east of the Olentangy River. In 1819, the Methodists organized a Bible study group that met in a log house on land that is now part of Whetstone Park.
In 1821, they moved to the large brick home of Thomas Bull, on the east side of High Street between what are now Dunedin and Piedmont Roads. Bull died in 1823, but his will stipulated that land be given to the Methodists for a church.
The church was not built until 1838. In the meantime, the Methodists met in a log school house on the west side of High Street near present-day Walhalla Drive.
The Clinton Chapel was finally completed in 1838 on Bull’s land just across High Street from the log school house. The chapel, a building with a foundation of glacial boulders and thick walls of brick, served as a stop on the Underground Railroad before and during the Civil War. The chapel, though altered over the years, still exists within the confines of a building that during the 20th and 21st centuries has been used as a speakeasy (during Prohibition), a funeral home and now a day-care and preschool.
The chapel had grown to 282 members when the building was sold by the conference in 1881. After the sale, some of the chapel families began meeting as a Sunday School in a schoolhouse near the present-day site of Clinton Elementary School.
In 1905, the conference assigned the Rev. H.B, Westervelt to serve as the first supervisor of the Sunday School, which had about 60 members, and a new congregation was officially organized. In 1909, the congregation began a new church that would be called Como Methodist Episcopal Church. After completing its building in 1910, the Como congregation grew rapidly under the leadership of Pastor S.A. McNeilan. The building was expanded once, and by 1920, the church, now under the leadership of Pastor E.L. Davis, had exceeded 700 members. It was in that year that the need for a larger church prompted the congregation to lay plans for what would become North Broadway Methodist Episcopal Church (to be renamed North Broadway United Methodist Church after a merger of two denominations in 1968).
On Oct. 3, 1921, the congregation purchased land for a new church on North Broadway, just east of N. High Street, for $7,500. The congregation signed a contract for construction with Martin, Orr, & Martin Architects on May 14, 1923.
“We were scared, so was Mr. Martin,” remembered Fred E. Jones, a building committee member. The congregation had raised about $12,000 of the $182,000 it would cost to build the church. Various groups within the congregation stepped up to make the new building possible. Frances Best, wife of building committee member Charles Best, recalled that when the Ladies Aid Society met to consider its pledge, the idea of contributing $1,000 a year quickly gave way to pledging an even higher figure: $3,000 a year.
“There were some interesting discussions around the dinner tables in Clintonville that night when we went home and told our husbands,” Mrs. Best said. “They wanted to know if it was joke or had we lost our minds.”
But by selling baked goods and needle work, taking in ironing and catering dinners, they did manage to fulfill their commitment.
Initial plans for the new church called for a stone exterior with a green tile roof, but the need to economize forced the building committee to switch from stone to brick. That saved $22,000, Jones later recalled.
Ground was broken on May 20, 1923. The cornerstone, containing a copper box with memorabilia from Como Avenue church and the newly forming North Broadway church was laid on Sept. 2, 1923. (Some church histories give the date as Sept. 22, but this is contradicted by some of the earliest church records.)
Mounting construction costs soon forced the new congregation to take out construction loans from banks. To secure the loans, 35 members of the congregation put up collateral (presumably including their own houses).
But one year later — Sept. 28, 1924 — the church was finished. that bright Sunday morning, a Sunday School band led the congregation on a ” north on High Street from Como to East North Broadway. Two members who made that march as boys were still alive when the Como-North Broadway congregation celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1994he event is still remembered as the Como March.”
The completion of North Broadway did not spell the end for the Como Avenue church. It was sold to the United Brethren Church and then became a United Methodist Church when the two denominations merged in 1968. The building continued to operate as a church into the 21st century. It is now a private residence.
When the congregation arrived at its new church on North Broadway, Rev. E.L. Davis was there to greet them. The church’s new Moeller pipe organ supplied music for that inaugural service and sunlight streamed through the Good Shepherd stained glass window that overlooked the altar at the front of the sanctuary. It was a gift from Mr and Mrs. D. E. Henderson in memory of their son, Earl, who died while serving in the military during World War I.
Davis had worked for five years to help members plan their new home. After preaching the first sermon ever delivered at North Broadway on the day it opened, he retired. Dr. Thomas H. Campbell became the pastor. The new building was formally dedicated on Oct. 12, 1924, by Bishop Theodore Henderson. In its new home, the church grew rapidly, doubling in membership from 769 to 1390 members in 1929, when Dr. Thomas T. Crawford succeeded Dr. Campbell.
The stock market crashed shortly after Dr. Crawford’s arrival, and The Great Depression followed. The church ran into trouble making its mortgage payments as members fell on hard times.
The building committee met with bank officers to plead North Broadway’s case. When a bank officer said the bank might have to foreclose, Fred Jones quietly asked, “If you do foreclose, what are you going to do with a church?” The bank relented, allowing the church to pay interest only, until finances improved.
Despite those struggles, North Broadway continued to grow, reaching 1,961 members by 1937, when Dr. Charles M. Coulter became pastor. During his tenure, North Broadway hired its first assistant pastor, Dr. Ronald Greene, who concentrated on youth programs.
World War II deeply affected the congregation. More than 200 members served in the military, and the church lost eight sons. A plaque at the bottom of the ramp at the main southeast entrance records their names. Boy Scout Troop 28 held paper drives to raise money and many adults served as air raid wardens and on ration boards.
Dr. Coulter was succeeded in 1943 by an interim pastor, Dr. Carl Gregg Doney. He served for seven months until Dr. F. Gerald Ensley arrived in the spring of 1944. Ensley was renowned for his preaching, and services were often packed.
The North Broadway congregation entered a period of fast growth and big changes after World War II. The renowned preaching of Ensley drew more and more people to the church. In 1948, with membership rising rapidly, North Broadway undertook its first major remodeling since the church’s construction in 1924.
The sanctuary was enlarged, a center aisle was created and a new communion rail and altar were installed. Dr. Ensley also initiated the Altar Guild. The 1940s ended with membership at 3,000. More remodeling came in 1951 when the church added an education wing to the north side of the building. It initially housed a preschool that would later become North Broadway Children’s Center.
Dr. Ensley was elected a bishop in 1952. Dr. Raymond Hibbard served as interim senior minister until Ensley’s successor, Dr. Lance Webb, arrived in 1953.
With the North Side of Columbus growing fast, North Broadway’s membership skyrocketed, reaching 4,000 by 1956. It was now one of the most prestigious mainline churches in Columbus. This created a parking problem. Between 1947 and 1965, the church acquired eight nearby lots or houses to convert into parking. Dr. Webb, also known for his preaching, served until 1964, when he, too, was elected a bishop.
Dr. William E. Smith took over as senior minister in 1965. The church’s membership hit its peak in Smith’s first year – 4,527. Updating the rolls cut those numbers, as did the decline of mainline Protestantism and the flight to the suburbs. Membership had fallen below 4,000 by the end of the 1960s. But there was a new energy in the congregation.
North Broadway’s outreach — near and far — had always been a signature part of the church’s character. Support for missionaries, contributions to the building of churches overseas and efforts to help those in need locally were important to the congregation. In 1969, the congregation took several particularly bold steps: It sent its high school youth on the very first Work Camp, to repair churches in a Native American community in Oklahoma; joined with eight other Methodist churches to found the NNEMAP food pantry; and undertook a capital campaign that pledged to spend $1 on community outreach for every $2 raised for the church. That promise led to the founding of the Clintonville-Beechwold Community Resources Center (now an independent agency) and the construction of the North Broadway Children’s Center wing of the church building.
The same capital campaign also raised the money needed for an extensive remodeling of the sanctuary. It replaced the church’s dark woodwork with new lighter-colored wood, and replaced the old pews with new, padded ones set at an angle to provide a sense of people gathering together. The remodeling also included the installation of a new Casavant pipe organ. The need to place the organ pipes on the south wall of the sanctuary necessitated the movement of the Good Shepherd window, a controversial change still remembered to this day. The window now sits over the main entrance to the church.
Not long after the new organ arrived so did Carol Ann Bradley, the church’s longest-serving music director. She is remembered for her excellence as an organist and choir director and her skill at working with youth.
In 1974, North Broadway celebrated its 50th anniversary. Some of the Como members who had worked so hard to found a new church contributed their recollections to an anniversary publication. One of the recurring themes was the church’s commitment to global mission work. In its first 50 years, North Broadway had a hand in building churches in India, Korea, Brazil and Japan. And the church once had a house on Oakland Park Avenue dedicated to missionary families home on furlough. Much of this mission work was done by the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society, organized shortly after the church’s doors opened in 1924. The society later became one of the groups that merged into a new, denomination-wide organization called United Methodist Women in the early 1970s. UMW continued the mission work that its predecessor group had started.
Dr. Smith was succeeded as senior minister by Rev. Charles Kirsch in 1982. The church became increasingly active in outreach efforts through such programs as the Interfaith Hospitality Network, in which a group of churches took turns housing homeless families for a week at a time. It also provided space for a Korean congregation for several years until it had grown large enough to acquire its own church.
Another remodeling of the North Broadway building began in 1989 to add office space and an elevator.
Rev. Kirsch was succeeded by Rev. C. Joseph Sprague in 1990, when church membership stood at about 2,300. Rev. Sprague continued the emphasis on social justice, often speaking out against war, consumerism, and inequity. Sprague’s commitment to gay rights led him to conduct a same-sex wedding ceremony nearly 30 years before the United Methodist Church would finally remove strictures against such ceremonies from its Book of Discipline in 2024.
In 1996, Rev. Sprague was elected a bishop, and Rev. John Dunham was appointed interim senior minister until 1997, when Dr. Mearle Griffith took over.
The church building grew once again with the completion of the Simpson Memorial Chapel in 1997. In 1999, the Large and Small Dining Rooms were remodeled and renamed Anniversary Hall and Como Hall. North Broadway marked its 75th anniversary that same year.
In 2000, Dr. Griffith was succeeded by Rev. Edwin Lewis.
North Broadway’s long commitment to youth Work Camps continued under Lewis, and the congregation also found another way to serve its neighbors with the creation of the Early Response Team. The team, which made its first disaster relief trip in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina, has since been to more than 15 states helping those struck by floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and other disasters.
Those are two examples of the church’s outreach efforts, but there have been many more in recent decades. North Broadway has participated in the AIDS Service Connection, the Interfaith Hospitality Network, the Kairos and Horizon prison ministries, the South of Main project, the BREAD organization, dinners at the Y Family Center, the Clintonville-Beechwold Community Resources Center Kid’s Club, the Pride Parade and the Backpack Project that provides food to children at Indianola Informal School.
In 2006, Rev. Dr. Deborah Stevens was appointed Senior Minister, becoming the first female senior pastor to serve in the North Broadway pulpit.
During Rev. Stevens ’tenure, a Capital Campaign was undertaken to update the sanctuary, make the building more energy efficient, and improve fire safety. The sanctuary’s appearance did not change markedly, but the platform holding the altar was extended, ramps were added, and a video screen was installed.
North Broadway also became a Reconciling Congregation, declaring that it welcomes people of all races, ages, nationalities, gender identities, sexual orientations, economic statuses, and mental and physical abilities.
In July 2015, Rev. Stevens was succeeded as Senior Pastor by Rev. Marcus Atha. During Rev. Atha’s appointment, the congregation of North Broadway renewed its focus on children and youth when, in December of 2015, a new nursery, All Things Bright and Beautiful, was created from existing office space. Generous memorial gifts also allowed the community to revitalize additional spaces for children and youth, including the creation of Miller Park on the third floor of the building and The Studio (formerly known as The Undercroft) on the ground floor.
North Broadway took one of the biggest steps in its history when it began the process of becoming a two-campus church in 2017.
That year, the congregation of New Life United Methodist Church, 25 W. 5th Avenue in the Short North neighborhood, voted to close so that it could be reborn as a new congregation in partnership with North Broadway. North Broadway’s congregation approved the plan, also in 2017. The New Life building, which dates to the late 19th century, was extensively renovated. On Nov. 11, 2018, the congregation, under the leadership of Rev. Amy Aspey, launched and held its first worship service in the renewed space under its new name — Short North Church.
SNC continues to house the office of — and serve in partnership with — New Life Community Outreach, a legacy of New Life church. NLCO provides meals, health care, clothing and other services to those in need. In its brief existence, Short North Church has formed community partnerships with Star House, Columbus Coalition for the Homeless, AA, Dress for Success, Short North Stage and other organizations that bring support and hope to the Short North neighborhood.
SNC’s signature outreach ministry has been YoWo (Yoga + Worship), a practice centered on quietening the spirit and fueling the soul while connecting with God through yoga, music meditation and inspirational guidance and prayer.
The COVID pandemic that began in early 2020 was a challenge for both congregations. Live worship closed for months, both at North Broadway and Short North, to meet health guidelines and protect the vulnerable. Both shifted to on-line worship and outdoor services until they could safely reopen their sanctuaries in 2021.
North Broadway Children’s Center renewed its commitment to the community by extensively renovating its space in a project that was completed in 2020. The extensive renovation was the first since the center was built in 1970-71. The North Broadway congregation supported the project through the Embracing Adventure capital campaign, which also raised funds for the Short North church to assist in its growth.
In an accelerated five month program, the Children’s Center was taken down to the studs to remove old flooring, asbestos, plumbing and electrical devices. The old central heating and cooling system was abandoned and individual room HVAC control units were installed. New, opening windows were added to the classrooms, and the restrooms were upgraded. This $2.1 million renovation allows the Children's Center to better accommodate up to 300 children at full capacity.
The North Broadway Children's Center serves families across the religious and economic spectrum.
In 2022, both churches and the Children’s Center returned to near-normal operation as the pandemic eased.
North Broadway turned 99 years old in 2023, with a membership of about 470 and a long record of vital ministry, both inside and outside its walls. The Casavant pipe organ was being refurbished and the congregation was planning a n for 2024.
The disaffiliation movement that saw some United Methodist churches leave the denomination in 2023 over theological differences did not appreciably affect North Broadway. But cultural and demographic shifts have continued to impact the size of North Broadway’s membership. Despite this, the outreach and vitality of the ministry remain strong. North Broadway continues its tradition of quality worship with magnificent music. Adult education offerings are intellectually and theologically robust. The people of North Broadway, in partnership with the people of Short North Church, are visible and vocal advocates for justice. The partnership with the North Broadway Children’s Center continues to offer top quality early childhood education to the community. Outreach to homeless families, to international and regional mission partners, and to the Clintonville-Beechwold Community Resources Center and New Life Community Outreach continues to offer many avenues for persons to grow in discipleship and become more deeply committed to the call of Christ.
In the summer of 2024, a 100th Anniversary Committee arranged for the opening of the copper box that had been placed in the cornerstone of North Broadway as it was under construction a century earlier. Inside were mementos from the Como Avenue congregation whose members were bold enough to found a new church, and mementos from that new church, now ready to embark on a second century of living out the Gospel.
