Indiana People -- Dec. 2001

Ruth Bell Krulce Gates, 75, South Conference's Historian of the Year, died Oct. 15. Gates was the historian for Lawrence UMC in Indianapolis for 16 years and wrote several books, including a history of Lawrence UMC.

Matthew Carlisle, associate director of communications for the Indiana Area, was named as a delegate to the foundational meeting of the United Methodist Web Ministry Guild at the United Methodist Association of Communicators' Conference in Nashville, Tenn., last month. During his one-year term, Carlisle will work with nine other delegates from across the country to shape the start-up group. The United Methodist Web Ministry Guild was created to bring unity through Web ministries.

Clergy and laity involved in designing or maintaining a UM-related Web site are invited to join the guilds.

Fletcher Place, a UM-related community service ministry in downtown Indianapolis, was one of seven agencies to receive an Indianapolis Families Count Award, which includes a $5,000 grant funded by the Annie E. Casey foundation. The award was presented at the Family Strengthening Summit last month. Nomination for the recognition came from clients of Fletcher Place. The agency provides daycare, a food program and other family services, including various practical "survival" classes for the underprivileged. Rev. Jessi Langlie is executive director. Fletcher Place serves about 2,500 clients annually.

Christ UMC in Indianapolis received $2,150 from the March of Dimes to support the church's Elizabeth Ministries. The program provides preconception, pregnancy and post-pregnancy counseling.

Metro Ministries, a ministry of the South Indiana Conference, held their annual dinner meeting at Indianapolis' Broadway UMC on Nov. 15. The organization presented their Missioners of the Year award to Kent Simmerman, John Buswell and Howard Teagarden for their work at Brightwood Community Center and Fletcher Place Adult Education Center.

Dr. James E. and Merciel Doty recently had their autobiography published by Eakin Press. The Dotys were in Indiana from 1957 to 1966 when James was director of pastoral care and counseling for the Indiana Methodist churches. "For Heaven's Sake!" chronicles the couple's 60 years together, from meeting in college in 1941 to service that brought them in contact with Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Dr. Linus Pauling, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. The 300-page book is available for $15 post paid from Dr. James E. Doty, 800 South 15th Street #1730, Sebring, Ohio 44672.

More than 300 people attended the ground-breaking ceremony and the opening of a time capsule found in the cornerstone of the recently demolished Loogootee UMC Sept. 30. The time capsule contained a 1904 Discipline, a Methodist hymnal from 1905, a photo of the church built on the site in 1873 and a copy of the Martin County Tribune.

Despite the economic challenges presented in Northwest Indiana and the other atrocities occurring across the globe, there is a church in Gary whose parishioners proclaimed that: "Despite the Odds, We Have the Victory!" Using Romans 8:31-39 as their Scripture reference, Fifth Avenue UMC chose this as their theme for 2001 as they celebrated 44 years as a church family. Fifth Avenue has as its core a body of believers coming from two identities, four locations and several ministers.

Following decades of enforced segregation, the Methodist Episcopal Church in North Indiana decided to integrate its conference. Finding no existing congregation willing to leave, the Black Lexington Conference agreed to embark on a joint evangelistic mission to found such a church. In January 1957, the Rev. Arthur Davis was asked to serve as treasurer for what was known as the Marshalltown Project, an outreach project of the Christian faith.

In February 1957, the Rev. Emerick Mitchell of Milwaukee, Wis. was appointed to the pastorate of Marshalltown Methodist Episcopal Church. Marshalltown was the first African American church in Gary to join the North Indiana Conference.

In 1959, through the strong efforts of Rev. Mitchell and a very willing congregation, a parsonage was built and by 1961 ground was broken for a church home located at 2153 E. 21st Avenue. Services were moved to the parsonage basement until the summer of 1961, when the first service in the new church building was held.

The congregation moved to their present location in January 1978, holding consecration services on May 7, 1978, in which the name was changed to Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church.

Faith UMC in Goshen has quite a bit to celebrate. Their church building, built in 1996 at a cost of $2.5 million dollars, is almost paid off. Attendance has grown from 350 to 700 and is still growing. Plans are underway to expand next year.

Members say what makes Faith both successful and unusual is that Faith was originally four different churches: Castle, Good Shepherd, Grace and Simpson United Methodist Churches. All four churches voted to combine in 1993, and by 1996 the united congregations had moved into their new building in Goshen.

This successful four-way merger is the only one recorded in the history of Indiana Methodism. Lynda Ward

North hosts Spirit and Place speaker

As part of the IUPUI and Polis Center's Spirit & Place Festival, Cornel West was the guest speaker at Indianapolis' North UMC on Sunday, Nov. 4.

Cornel West is the Alphonse Fletcher Jr., University Professor at Harvard University teaching in Afro-American Studies and Philosophy of Religion. He is the author of numerous books, including his most recent The Cornel West Reader and the two-volume Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturalism. Popular on the lecture circuit, West served as Professor of Religion and Director of the Afro-American Studies Department at Princeton before joining the Harvard faculty in 1994.

West challenged those in attendance to re-examine their views of violence in America.

West was one of three featured speakers, which included Jane Smiley and Rabbi Harold Kushner, in the Festival's Public Conversation.

HUM News photos by David Hyde.