CUMBERLAND — After the last resounding chord from the organ went silent, the room erupted in applause.
It was the first time the congregation of St. John United Church of Christ had heard it played in more than six years, the first time they had heard it played in the church’s new building.
Moving to a new building has included carrying in a range of furnishings, from a lectern that was in the building next door to nearly 100 upholstered chairs from storage.
Getting settled also meant having someone install the more than 900 pipes that give the instrument — brought with the church from the building it moved out of in 2015 — its range of notes and sounds.
So hearing the organ near the start of the church’s May 30 service was part of a series of poignant moments that have come as the church has moved into its new space.
“The first time it was played was another ‘aha,'” said church member Rich Suiter. “It’s been (several) years since anybody had heard it.”
Though the congregation decided to move from its 1914 building and construct the new building it now inhabits, the years in between held challenges members didn’t anticipate when they gathered for a final service at 11000 E. Washington St. in 2015.
One challenge was selling the East Washington building, which drew an outcry when early prospective buyers planned to demolish it. (See related story, “The path from Washington to Prospect.”)
Another challenge came when many local churches stopped gathering in late March 2020 amid COVID-19. St. John had planned to start streaming its services in the future, but it wasn’t doing so yet and had to quickly adapt and find a way to do that sooner instead of later, said the Rev. Janna Meyers, the church’s pastor.
When the church began meeting again in July 2020, its space in the activity center building, where it gathered during a prolonged interim between church buildings, was limited and couldn’t hold everyone in a distanced fashion. So parishioners took turns attending every other week so everyone who wished to attend in person could do so. Those not in person tuned in online.
The digital presence launched last year will remain, Meyers said. A tablet stand by the lectern allows her to see a prayer request shared by a parishioner watching online, for example, and the church now has an online elder greeting and is sharing announcements with people who join in services remotely.
“Everything we do now is digital and in-person,” Meyers said. “So we’ll stay in both spheres.”
The building is a mix of past and present. Motion-activated, energy-efficient lighting and a sound system that’s conducive to hearing aids and closed captioning are part of it. So are pieces of the past, such as the organ and several stained glass windows that were carefully saved from the East Washington Street building and are being installed here.
Some of the pews from East Washington were fashioned into cabinets for the new church kitchen, and the church member who built them even wood-burned a United Church of Christ logo into the doors.
Such touches have “helped us feel connected to our old church,” Meyers said. “This church has been part of the community for so long.”
Like the building, the congregation is also a mix of past and present. Meyers said some worshipers connected with the church online during COVID and later came in person. She estimates about 40 percent of those attending now are, like her, people who came to the church after its move to Prospect.
Those intervening years, navigating challenges and coming together, have made the church “More aware of what they’re called to do and who they’re called to be,” she said.
The building is a big piece of moving forward into future ministry, but people at the church talk of other mini-milestones that point to being active in days to come. Crafters are meeting in the activity center, working on projects for the church’s Holiday Festival that comes back in November. Suiter said the church also looks forward to resuming its monthly community dinners later this year.
“We are not at cruising altitude yet,” Meyers said, “but we are climbing.”
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The St. John congregation began meeting for services — in German — in the 1840s, according to the church’s website. The church’s first and second buildings were built on the corner of East Washington Street and what came to be known as German Church Road. Later, a brick structure was built there and dedicated in 1914.
About a hundred years later, the congregation felt the burden of caring for the aging building and felt it would be freer to carry out future ministry by doing so in a new space. It gathered for a final service there on Oct. 4, 2015, and moved to the Muesing Activity Center it had built at 11910 E. Prospect St.
The activity center’s largest room became a makeshift worship space until the church could build a new building at the site. It meant to finance such as building with money from sale of the Washington Street property.
But its plan to sell for $2.4 million to a developer who would demolish the structure and build a pharmacy drew the dismay of some community members and Town of Cumberland officials. Amid the outcry, the prospective buyer — and the next prospective buyer, offering $1.7 million and wanting to build a convenience store — pulled out.
St. John was finally able to sell the property for $1.5 million in 2019 to a developer who planned to renovate the building for a new use. With funds available, it broke ground on its new worship space in March 2020.
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