Big plans for little church
Church in the Valley to expand
By Kathleen Folkerth
BOSTON — When the Church in the Valley started up in 1992 in its historic building on Everett Road in Boston Township, one of the members of the then-small congregation asked the Rev. John Fisk if anyone would come to the remote little church.
“I said, ‘The Lord gave it to us, so he’s going to bring us some people,’” Fisk said.
And did He ever. The nondenomination, independent church is now home to 300 members and the top spot for weddings in Summit County, with 165 in 2005, according to Fisk.
But with only enough seating for 135 in a structure that was built in 1895 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992, Fisk and the congregation realized it would be difficult to grow since the church’s property is surrounded by land that is part of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (CVNP).
“If we would have had the space, we would have 1,000 members,” Fisk said.
Fisk said he would like to see the church settle with a comfortable 500 members. And he expects that to happen in the next two years now that plans have been finalized for a major addition to the church.
Ground for the $1.7 million project will be broken this Sunday, June 25, at 10: 30 a.m. Within two weeks, construction will start and is expected to take about six months, Fisk said.
The addition will grow the facility to about five times its current size, he said.
Fisk said the church, which was
previously known as Everett Church of Christ, has wanted
to do something for a while to accommodate its members
and the community. Six years ago,
CVNP Superintendent John Debo approached him with a
plan.
“He said he knew we had
outgrown the church and he proposed we get a historical
architect and plan a building to meet our needs, and
the park would make the land available,” Fisk
said.
When Debo asked Fisk what he
thought of the plan, Fisk said he replied, “I’ll
tell you after I kiss you.”
Debo said keeping the church
viable is important to the park.
“The church has had a long
history in the Cuyahoga Valley,” Debo said. “We
really did not want to see the outcome be one more abandoned
country church in our region.”
The church had the money for
the expansion saved, but it took the past few years
to get all the details and plans approved by the Secretary
of the Interior, overseer of national
parks.
For the project, the church will
receive about 4 acres of park land. In return, the park
will receive a historic preservation easement over the
historic church, according to the CVNP.
The project will involve tearing
down a 1967 addition at the back of the church that
currently houses offices and a nursery. The new addition
will expand the sanctuary out the back, adding another
eight pews, allowing the church to seat 220 when completed.
The pews will be made by a church member to match the
original pews already in the church, Fisk said.
A large adjoining fellowship
hall building will feature three floors of usable space:
a basement for youth activities, a first floor with
room to seat 250 and a second floor for offices.
When all is completed,
Fisk has big plans for the church
community.
“We’ll have a Sunday
school program for all ages,” Fisk said, adding
that the current space has not allowed the church to
have the program it would like.
He also plans to begin hosting
a monthly luncheon with speakers for the business community.
To be called “Escape to the Valley,” the
programs will offer lunch prepared by church members
and speakers on topics ranging from religion and faith
to business practices.
The additional space also will
allow the church to host more weddings, Fisk said.
“We’ve had to turn
many people down because we don’t have the space,”
he said.
Once this project is completed,
Fisk doesn’t see that the church could expand
much more and keep its current close-knit feeling.
“You can’t maintain
a sense of family [with more than 500],” Fisk
said, adding that the church has already begun discussing
adding a second congregation elsewhere.
Fisk said the pastor-less Everett
Church of Christ was down to a handful of members —
six widows and a young couple — when he was asked
to visit in 1992. His church had been meeting at the
Bath Town Hall and was looking for a church of its own,
so he agreed to take over the little church.
He had the church refurbished,
and the people started coming.
“The ladies were just ecstatic,”
Fisk said. “They thought their little church was
dead.”
He only found out then that the
small congregation had been meeting for several weeks
to contemplate selling the church and property to the
park. Debo said the decision
to add to the church’s property is a win-win situation.
“The church can expand,
grow and prosper, and from our perspective we have a
preserved historic structure and continued historic
use of a building that is an integral part of Everett
Village,” Debo said. “It wasn’t easy
and it took a long time, but in the end we’re
smiling and the congregation is smiling.”
The church is located at 2241
Everett Road. Sunday services are at 8:30 a.m. and 11
a.m. For more information, call (330) 657-2200.
A model of the Church in the Valley
project shows the existing church building (foreground
with steeple) and the addition that will expand the
facility.
The Rev. John Fisk, pastor of
the Church in the Valley, stands before the Everett
Road church that was built in 1895 and named to the
National Register of Historic Places in 1992.
Photos: Ken Crisafi
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