Bushnell Congregational Church Detroit MI

Bushnell Congregational Church in Detroit, Michigan is a Christian congregation serving the Detroit community and seeking, engaging, and encouraging others through a life-changing Christian journey.

We seek to be a loving, friendly community that worships God, and serves others. We place a high priority on teaching from the Bible and following the example of Jesus.

Our vision is to impact and renew Detroit and beyond with the transforming message of Jesus Christ through words and actions.

Come as you are - we'd love to get to know you.

 

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Bushnell Congregational Church, established in 1926, became by the 1950s the largest Congregational church in Detroit and one of the largest in the United States. Its present building, located on what was then Mill Road (now the Southfield Freeway) just south of Grand River Avenue, was completed in 1939, with additions made in 1948, 1953, and 1958. Its growth, both in terms of the size of its building and in membership, are reflective of the development of the surrounding Detroit neighborhoods: Rosedale Park, to the west, and Grandmont-Rosedale, to the east.

Congregationalism arose in the seventeenth century out of the Protestant Nonconformist response to the creation of the Church of England, and Congregational churches were established by Puritan and Pilgrim settlers in New England. Congregational churches have a history of autonomy and democratic governance. In the United States, they have often been on the forefront of social movements such as abolitionism and the women's suffrage movement.

In 1924 the Detroit Council of Churches asked the Rev. Irving W. Stuart, superintendent of the Detroit Congregational Union, to establish a Congregational church in the rapidlygrowing northwestern portion of Detroit. At the time, the land surrounding the intersection of Grand River Avenue and what is now the Southfield Freeway had recently been annexed by the city from Redford Township. Although the area was still somewhat rural in character, it was rapidly being developed with the establishment of subdivisions such as Rosedale Park, North Rosedale Park, and Grandmont-Rosedale. A small congregation, led by Stuart, met at the home of Mrs. and Mr. Walter Phipps in North Rosedale Park on December 11, 1924. By January 5, 1925, a group of about forty people were meeting at the newly-constructed District #2 School on Grand River Avenue. This building, which still stands, was at the time administered by Redford Union Schools; it was acquired by the Detroit Board of Education in 1926 and renamed Thomas Edison School in 1929.

In a series of meetings on May 25 and September 22, 1925, members of the congregation, along with representatives of the Detroit Congregational Union, arranged for the establishment of a permanent church. A Board of Trustees was created, the land for the present Bushnell Congregational Church site was purchased at a cost of $10,000, and an additional $3,000 was set aside for the construction of a temporary building. A sodturning ceremony for the new site was held on November 29, 1925.

On December 1, 1925 a constitution and by-laws were created for the newly-founded congregation. It was named Bushnell Congregational Church, after Horace Bushnell (1802-1876), a Congregational minister and theologian from Hartford, Connecticut.

Stuart presided over a service on January 3, 1926, formally dedicating the new congregation. 131 charter members attended, along with twenty-nine children who were baptized during the service. The Rev. Eddy Treat of Salisbury Connecticut was called to become the first pastor of Bushnell Congregational Church on May 2, 1926. He would retain that position until 1955.

In the spring of 1937 the members of Bushnell Congregational Church sponsored a drive to raise funds for the construction of a permanent building. A groundbreaking ceremony for the new $75,000 structure was held on January 1, 1939. The new church building, with a capacity of 350, was opened that year, its sanctuary having been completed with no mortgage. The first services in the new building were held on September 10, 1939.

Three frame buildings that had been previously constructed on the site were retained and used for Sunday school and other community functions. The new church building was formally dedicated on October 15, 1939 in a service that included such ecumenical guests as Rabbi Leo M. Franklin of Detroit's Temple Beth El and the Rev. Kirk B. O'Ferrall of the city's St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral. Preaching on that Sunday was the Rev. Russell J. Clinchy of Hartford, Connecticut. It was the second Congregational church to be established in Detroit, following First Congregational Church, which was founded at Woodward and Forest Avenues in 1852.

Over the next two decades, the surrounding Rosedale Park and Grandmont-Rosedale communities grew in population and became home to many wealthy Detroit residents. These were prosperous years for Bushnell Congregational Church as membership increased and new additions were made to the church building. The Fellowship Hall, added in 1948, is used for community meetings and events and includes a large kitchen and stage. Additional offices and classrooms were added when an educational wing was completed in 1953.

The Rev. Benton S. Gaskell succeeded Treat as pastor, and under his leadership, the congregation continued to grow. Bushnell Congregational Church was now the largest Congregational church in Detroit and the ninth largest in the United States. The building's present configuration was reached with a final addition, constructed in 1958, and church membership peaked in 1959 at 2650.

The 1950s and 1960s at Bushnell Congregational Church were marked by an ongoing concern with issues of social justice. Essays printed in the Spokesman, the church's weekly newsletter begun during Treat's tenure as pastor and continued into the 1960s, encourage church members to inform themselves and take action on a variety of issues. During 1953 and 1954 Gaskell and the assistant pastor, the Rev. John B. Forsyth, frequently advocated for continued United States involvement in the United Nations, cautioned against McCarthyism’s threat to civil liberties and opined on the topic of nuclear disarmament. The church also encouraged federal assistance for those without access to health insurance.

During the late 1950s the all-white congregation began to involve itself in the Civil Rights Movement. It opposed poll taxes and literacy tests as a qualification for voter registration. The church also provided financial support to Koinonia Farm, a raciallyintegrated Christian farming community near Americus, Georgia that withstood a boycott that had been called by the local Chamber of Commerce, a bombing, and acts of violence and vandalism by Ku Klux Klan members. According to Gaskell, Koinonia Farm “resemble[d], in certain definite ways, the first-century churches which the New Testament describes.”

Occasionally, views of the church leadership caused the congregation to be at odds with members of the surrounding community. On March 2, 1958 the Gaskell invited the Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr., a prominent African American minister and pastor of Central Congregational Church (now known as the Shrine of the Black Madonna) and his choir to conduct a service at Bushnell Congregational Church. A group of nearby residents gathered outside to protest, carrying signs with messages such as “We oppose race mixing in church,” and handing out leaflets opposing all forms of integration. The leadership of Bushnell Congregational Church received numerous phone calls and letters opposing the exchange. Forsyth noted that “it was clear that these did not come from members of our congregation,” and observed an overwhelmingly positive response by members of the congregation to Cleage’s service.

Still, Forsyth reminded the congregation that “the findings of science” confirm that all races are equal, and criticized the “hypocrisy” of various forms of housing discrimination of that prevented African Americans from residing in the area served by Bushnell Congregational Church.”

In the summer of 1963, Forsyth participated in the Walk to Freedom march along Woodward Avenue organized by the Rev. C. L. Franklin of New Bethel Baptist Church and featuring an address by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Forsyth also wrote in support of King’s March on Washington. According to Forsyth, “We are moving toward an entirely integrated society in the United States, as I have heard many of you remark from time to time. We have no choice about this. Our only choice is whether we will accept it with gladness as something which must happen because it is right.”

Still, by the late 1970s many church members lived or worked in Detroit's suburbs, a result of the “white flight” from many of Detroit's neighborhoods during that time. Membership had been in decline since the early 1960s, and the congregation became divided over a proposal to sell the building altogether to purchase a site outside the city.

After a vote of church members in 1979, the building was listed for sale, and suburban church members began meeting in a rented facility in Novi in 1980. When a purchase offer for the Detroit site was received, however, the congregation voted at its January 23, 1983 meeting not to accept it. A new pastor, the Rev. Robin Meyers, originally from Oklahoma City, had assumed leadership of the church. Under his direction, the church was able to recruit a significant number of new members as well as reverse a budget deficit that had troubled the church during the previous decade.

Bushnell Congregational Church abandoned its original plan to sell its Detroit building to finance the construction of a new building in a suburban location, and instead maintained two locations simultaneously. This second location, on Meadowbrook Road in Novi, was known as Bushnell West. Soon, it established itself as a separate entity, known as Meadowbrook Congregational Church.

The pattern of growth at Bushnell Congregational Church, established in the early 1980s, continues to this day. Its current pastor, the Rev. Roy Isaac, has led the congregation since 2002.