Methodist Episcopal Church

The community fight over a proposed "megachurch" on the Carroll-Baltimore County border continued yesterday at a Baltimore County hearing, as residents voiced concerns that the 2,000-member church would disrupt their quiet neighborhood.Carroll Community Church, a nondenominational Christian congregation in Eldersburg, proposed last year to build a sanctuary and retreat on 65 acres at Route 91 and Mount Gilead Road.But the plan has met with resistance from residents, who fear the development will bring traffic congestion and pollution.

A Baltimore County hearing officer gave his blessing yesterday to plans for a 1,200-seat church along the border with Carroll County near Hampstead, but opponents said they will continue to fight the church's plans.Carroll Community Church won permission to build along Route 91 at Mount Gilead Road if the church is limited to 1,200 seats, prohibits alcohol outdoors, does not light its athletic field and has no antennas or broadcast towers.Pastor Joseph Duke said he agreed to all of the restrictions last month except the 1,200-seat limit.

Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church is scheduled to take its first formal step today toward seeking approval from Baltimore County agencies to build a 3,000-seat sanctuary in Granite that has met with resistance from local residents.County representatives have reviewed the church's preliminary plans and are to meet with church officials this morning to discuss concerns about the proposal to build on a 256-acre site at Old Court Road near Dogwood Road.Although church officials hope to build a complex that will include offices, a media center, banquet hall, classrooms and a broadcast station, now they are seeking a sanctuary and 1,500-space parking lot.One of the city's most influential congregations, Bethel has been trying to expand for years because its membership has outgrown its stately, 213-year-old building on Druid Hill Avenue, which seats about 1,700.

After four years of searching in Baltimore County for a place to build a new church, the congregation of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church thought it had found its promised land -- a 256-acre tract at Dogwood and Old Court roads in Granite.But after meeting with community members last night to present their plans, it was clear the West Baltimore church would need more than trumpets to knock down the walls of opposition.More than 200 people came to the meeting at Woodlawn High School to hear Bethel's proposal, but it was apparent that many had made up their minds to oppose the 3,000-seat church they fear would overwhelm their rural Patapsco Valley neighborhood.

Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church is scheduled to take its first formal step today toward seeking approval from Baltimore County agencies to build a 3,000-seat sanctuary in Granite that has met with resistance from local residents.County representatives have reviewed the church's preliminary plans and are to meet with church officials this morning to discuss concerns about the proposal to build on a 256-acre site at Old Court Road near Dogwood Road.Although church officials hope to build a complex that will include offices, a media center, banquet hall, classrooms and a broadcast station, now they are seeking a sanctuary and 1,500-space parking lot.One of the city's most influential congregations, Bethel has been trying to expand for years because its membership has outgrown its stately, 213-year-old building on Druid Hill Avenue, which seats about 1,700.

IT is common during Black History Month to make lists of "firsts" for African-Americans. Certainly, Baltimorean Daniel Coker, a 19th-century educator and religious leader, would be on any such list.Coker was one of the first African-Americans to become an ordained Methodist minister, publish a pamphlet ("A Dialogue Between a Virginian and an African Minister," in 1810), start a school and lead the independent black church movement.Coker, born Isaac Wright in 1780, was the son of an African-American slave father and an English indentured servant mother.

WHEN Philadelphia architect Hensel Fink designed Grace United Methodist Church on Charles Street, his plans called for a large stained-glass window to be installed above the altar on the eastern end of the sanctuary.Although the church opened in 1951, the stained-glass window was not completed at that time. But the architect's vision for the altar was realized this year when Grace's congregation installed a stained-glass window in the spot reserved for it nearly 50 years ago.The window came from the former Wilson Memorial United Methodist Church at University Parkway and Charles Street, a building whose congregation was merged with Grace's in 1996.

NEW YORK -- A community in pain came together yesterday morning at a church in St. Albans, Queens, seeking comfort and, through prayer, answers to seemingly unanswerable questions."

Over the years, a Carroll County-based ministry has battled the destruction of hurricanes, earthquakes and floods. Now its volunteers will tackle a man-made calamity: a South Carolina church gutted by arson.Members of the local Disaster Response Program, a Church of the Brethren project, came from across the nation to attend a three-day conference in New Windsor. The 82 volunteers made plans to rebuild the Butler Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church on the outskirts of Orangeburg, a small town south of Columbia, the state capital.

Sunday was T-shirt day at Payne Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church in West Baltimore. Everyone was dressed casually, wearing T-shirts celebrating the church's centennial.Then in walked the church's pastor, the Rev. Vashti McKenzie, looking cool and calm in a royal blue African-inspired two-piece dress that swept the floor.Later, she opened her jacket to reveal her Payne T-shirt.It was just one of the latest surprises from the woman who has become one of Baltimore's leading religious figures.

On a typical summer Sunday, the doors of Temple Oheb Shalom are locked tight. With observances of the Jewish Sabbath taking place on Friday night and Saturday and religious school out until fall, the Park Heights Avenue building sits empty. Not yesterday. Hundreds of congregants of a different faith poured into the sanctuary, bringing along their love of God, their upbeat music and their fervent prayer to the otherwise quiet house of worship. A fire July 1 damaged the historic Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Upton and left its flock with no place to come together.

The congregation of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Druid Hill Avenue will hold Sunday services at Pier Six Pavilion at the Inner Harbor this weekend after a two-alarm fire damaged the church's steeple Wednesday night. The fire, which officials are blaming on a lightning strike, didn't spread beyond the steeple and bell tower, Fire Department spokesman Chief Kevin Cartwright said, but the church's interior was damaged by water. The church was vacant at the time, and no one was injured.

The most recent addition to the list of Harford County landmarks won its place for its simplicity, history and role in the life of its community. Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1838 on donated ground that was owned by former slaves. Named for the street in Churchville where it was built, the parish was, for much of its history, the only church in the county where African-Americans were invited to worship. "My family gave the land and helped build the church," said the Rev. Lewis Smith, a retired Methodist minister.

Motorists driving along Bellona Avenue through Ruxton can catch a glimpse of a 19th- century gray frame Gothic Revival church with tall green shutters sitting on a slight, tree-capped hill above the light rail tracks. What they're looking at is St. John's African Methodist Episcopal Church, with its one-floor fieldstone parsonage nearby. Surrounding the buildings is a graveyard that constitutes the final resting place of generations of the Scott family from Bare Hills, who have been involved with the historic church since its founding by free blacks in 1833.

Mary E. Robinson, a Head Start teacher and administrator who later served on the Baltimore City school board, died Thursday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at Sinai Hospital. The Ashburton resident was 76. Born Mary Elizabeth Coleman in Memphis, Tenn., she earned a bachelor's degree in music at the University of Evansville in Evansville, Ind., an education degree from what is now Coppin State University and a master's degree from Morgan State University. She also had a deep soprano voice and served as director of a Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church choir for 13 years, family members said.

Jean D. Waters, a church musician and retired Social Security Administration employee, died Monday of cancer at her Southwest Baltimore home. She was 66. Born Jean Delois Lokeman in Baltimore and raised on Leeds Street, she was a 1959 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School. She earned a degree at the Peabody Conservatory. As a young woman, she worked in St. Agnes Hospital's nursery. She was later a benefits authorizer at the Social Security agency in Woodlawn, where she retired in 2004 after 31 years of service.

For nearly 100 years, a certain wood frame building in Hampden was a house of worship, the place where people came to celebrate many of life's rituals and rites of passage. Now that building is undergoing transition, from a church to a learning center for "at-risk adolescents." The one-time confines of the Hampden Trinity United Church of Christ, a Victorian Gothic structure at 1234 W. 36th St., will be renovated and enlarged to become a new home for Learning Inc., a community-based educational program for youths ages 14 to 18. Directors and supporters of the nonprofit organization gathered this month to mark the beginning of a $1.6 million construction project that will enable Learning Inc. to increase its enrollment from 50 to 100. It makes Trinity the second church in Hampden to be converted to a new use in the past six years.

The International Festival on Sunday at Mount Moriah African Methodist Episcopal Church on Bay Ridge Avenue in Annapolis featured the Gombey dancers of Bermuda, along with music, food, arts and crafts, face-painting and vendors.

Joseph Phillip Press, a retired Baltimore public schools industrial arts teacher, died of congestive heart failure Feb. 16 at Good Samaritan Hospital. The Northwood resident was 81. Born and raised in Northampton County, Va., he earned a bachelor's degree at Virginia State University, where he became a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and was active in the alumni association. He served in the Army and was stationed in India and Germany. He later studied at Boston University and received a diploma from Coyne Electrical School in Chicago.

Bernard Nathaniel Randolph, a retired Bethlehem Steel worker who helped care for his Lochearn neighbors, died of heart failure Monday at Sinai Hospital. He was 77. Mr. Randolph, who died the day before his 78th birthday, was born in Baltimore and raised in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood. After graduating from Douglass High School in 1945, he enlisted in the Army and served for two years. Known as "Caggy," he went to work at Sparrows Point in 1958 as a coal operator and rose to master welder.