Soggy Opportunity: Water Damage Brings New Life to MUMC
This story is provided courtesy of the Missouri Conference of the UMC and Editor Fred Koenig.
July 3, 2023, was the first day on the job at Missouri United Methodist Church in Columbia for Rev. Daniel Hilty. He had been off while moving from Springfield to Columbia and didn’t have his phone on overnight as he typically would. When he woke up at around 6 a.m., he saw a message from his associate pastor, Rev. Jewell McGhee, from a couple of hours earlier. There was a fire at the church.
McGhee had been called around 4 a.m. by a church member who was out of town on vacation. Because the church was in the middle of changing both the senior pastor and the office administrator, the phone numbers for the fire department were not up to date. McGhee was at the church at about 5 a.m.
By the time Hilty arrived at the church at about 6:30 a.m., the fire department was already getting things wrapped up. It was later determined that a candle that had been blown out during the contemporary service in the Christian Life Center (CLC) the day before continued to smolder undetected within its wick and reignited around 2 a.m., burned down, and set the altar table on fire. A small but hot fire triggered the sprinkler system, and the fire was extinguished. The entire area burned was only about four feet across. The church was left with some smoke damage and a lot of water damage from the sprinklers running for an extended time.
McGhee recalls walking through the sanctuary of the historic structure with Don Gruenewald, chair of the trustees.
“We had tears in our eyes, because we were both so grateful that beautiful, sacred space had been spared any damage,” McGhee said.
All of the damage was in the CLC, which was built in 2007. The historic church building it connects to was unaffected.
Rebes Bennet, director of The Neighborhood, the college ministry for the church, got there that morning. The year before, the ministry had just moved into an expanded wing of the CLC.
“We had just got it set up the way we wanted it when the fire happened,” she said.
That morning, she was thinking things didn’t look so bad, and she was hoping they would be moved back in by the summer welcome. She didn’t realize the water damage would have displaced her for more than a year.
The company contracted for cleanup quickly determined the amount of water damage made it evident that they would be offline for several months. That was initially shocking, but it didn’t last.
“It felt like the church was discouraged for all of, like half an hour,” Hilty said. “Then they started getting organized. The lay leadership in this church is wonderful.”
Andrew Beverley had been chair of the lead team since 2018, serving longer than usual to help the church through the pandemic and some pastor transitions. There’s a picture on the wall of his home that says, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” The lead team was looking at a lot of lemons.
The three sprinklers that were activated ran for about half an hour. Water from the gym ran down the inside of the walls and down to the ground floor. All of that drywall had to come out.
“On the main level we had to take it down to the studs,” Beverley said. “Upstairs they made a flood-cut, taking off the bottom four feet of drywall.”
There were quick plans put in place to accommodate the people who depended on using that space, including several 12-step groups that meet at the church.
When a commercial building doesn’t have operational sprinklers and fire detectors, as was the case immediately after the fire, the city of Columbia requires a fire watch protocol, in which someone is walking around the building every hour, all night long, looking for signs of fire or smoke.
“I was certainly in rooms of the church I’d never been in before,” Beverley said. “Even shining a flashlight around in the spooky parts on the fourth floor.”
Many people were pitching in at this time.
“Don (Gruenewald, chair of the trustees) was there all the time,” Beverley said.
Luke Heim came onto the board of trustees in 2023. It had been a three-person board, but the church had decided to expand it to six. He was told it wouldn’t be too big of a responsibility, especially now with twice as many people. It was just a meeting four times a year. The fire hit.
Heim stepped up to manage the insurance claim. He speaks very highly of Brotherhood Mutual, the property insurance company.
“They were amazing to work with,” he said, describing them as fair and diligent through the process.
The other immediate concern was damage mitigation and then demolition. There had been six inches of standing water in parts of the church. As the scope of the project came into focus, it became evident that Heim was the person best suited to take hold of the entire project and was the point person for the general contractor and other parties.
Heim is a biochemist in his day job, but he has a lot of personal experience dealing with contractors in construction. For years, his family has built a new house, lived in it for a couple of years, and then sold it and repeated the process, as well as building some spec houses.
“I speak the language (of contractors),” he said.
It was apparent that, regardless of what direction the restoration took, interim plans were needed. The City, the 9:30 a.m. contemporary service at the church, had been meeting in the gymnasium of the CLC, setting up chairs in a circle, distributing coloring books and art supplies around, making the service very experiential. Post-fire, they relocated to the sanctuary, which the church refers to as the Cathedral.
“Suddenly, everyone was sitting straight in a row, looking forward,” McGhee said. “It was shocking, how different worship felt in that space.”
As time went on they modified the space as best they could, blocking off half of the pews so people didn’t get too spread out, setting up some tall tables on the side and a pillow pile for children.
Interim accommodations for college ministry was also challenging.
“It hit our ministry hard, because we were using that space six days a week,” Bennet said.
The college ministry operated out of the third floor while construction was going on. Bennet soon realized that it was hard to get someone new to the ministry to make their way through the church and up to the third floor for the first time. The space was shared with the youth ministry. Some long time members liked the setup for nostalgic reasons, as that was the historic location of the Wesley House campus ministry.
An ideation team was put together to envision what the rebuild would look like. That process was taken on by Clark Mershon.
“The ideation team process probably added six months, but it was oh so worth it,” Heim said.
Mershon had attended the church as a college student in the 1980s, and quickly found his way back there when he moved back to Columbia seven years ago. He is currently the executive director of the Missouri Association of Secondary School Principals. As an administrator in education, he had a lot of experience in facilitating planning meetings with diverse voices. But in the process, it was his faith rather than his professional skills that gave him confidence moving forward.
“When God’s hand is in it, you know it’s going to be fine,” he said.
The ideation team put a high priority on valuing everyone’s opinions through the process, and offering encouragement to dream about what things could be.
“It was an opportunity to do something very, very special,” Mershon said. “We could take a dire situation and turn it into something beautiful.”
The congregation responded to surveys and meetings, and others who took an interest were more deeply involved in the process.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the Ideation Team and everyone who had a hand in this,” Mershon said.
In addition to honoring the hopes and dreams of the congregation, Mershon and Heim were proactive in involving the community at large from outside the church. They spoke to the city staff who were involved in promoting The District, the city of Columbia’s downtown area, as well as the Chamber of Commerce and the Convention and Visitors Bureau regarding how the church could best be part of the downtown Columbia community.
Goals were aligned with supporting the mission priorities of the church, with priorities being placed on having a dedicated space for contemporary worship, having a welcoming, hospitable place for college-age ministries, and being able to use the gymnasium more fully.
Bennet is grateful that everyone in the church was eager to have input from The Neighborhood regarding what they would like.
“I was surprised that I didn’t have to fight to make college ministry a priority,” she said.
But after a year and a half, the college students and youth were ready to go their separate ways.
“It was kind of like siblings or roommates, where you start getting tired and being around each other, and worried about things like eating each other’s snacks or not doing the dishes,” Bennet said. “I think they were probably glad to see us go and get their space back.”
The architect for the project was Simon Oswald Associates, the same architect as who did the original build. Insurance was going to pay $1.5 million. The new plans would cost $1.8 million. They ran a campaign over a couple of months and came within $10,000 of raising the $300,000. Then another $10,000 came in as the campaign was concluded, leaving a zero balance.
The college ministry space was intentionally designed with big double doors that open directly into the contemporary worship space so that both spaces can be used for college ministry.
The Christian Life Center has a big fire door to separate it from the historic part of the church that could be closed during the construction process.
“It was an ideal situation for them to really get after it,” Heim said.
After completion, Heim was concerned that there would be a lot of church members who just never set foot in the Family Life Center. He wanted to force them into it, so they could appreciate and see what they have. Hilty told him to go ahead … so he did. With pickleball. And it worked. The Monday night Pickleball group soon spawned a Tuesday afternoon 55 and over pickleball group, and a late-night, college-age pickleball group.
“That’s exactly what I wanted to have happen, is to see individual groups break out and start to use the space,” Heim said.
The CLC is now a beehive of activity. One week in March had more than 60 events on the church calendar.
It was 19 months between the fire and the time the church was fully moved back into the space. The offices moved around the end of October in 2024. The gymnasium was open in December. The first worship service in The City space was January 26. The whole building had a grand opening on February 2. Don Gruenewald, chair of the trustees for 10 years, died on February 2, the day the new worship center reopened.
Greg Thackery realizes that the February date has some historical significance, as does he. He started attending Missouri UMC in 1985 when he was a student at the University of Missouri and was dating Dora, who is currently on staff at the Missouri United Methodist Foundation. They were married in the church in 1987. He was on the building committee when the Christian Life Center was built.
“The grand opening (for the CLC) was the first weekend in February 2007,” Thackery said. “That was exactly 18 years before the grand re-opening after the fire.”
Thackery was on the leadership team when the fire occurred and is currently president of the team. He’s pleased with how things went financially this time.
“The congregation came together so we wouldn’t have any debt,” Thackery said. “Even before the building was open, it was a time for celebration.”
Thackery recalls that the original design had to be dialed back some because the church didn’t think they could pay for it. Even with the less expensive plan, the initial capital campaign didn’t cover it, nor did the second “Race to the Finish Line” capital campaign.
“It ended up taking three, three-year campaigns to pay for it,” Thackery said.
He’s very happy with the level of activity now.
“I feel like we’ve had more people in the building since we’ve reopened than we did in the first year that was originally open,” he said.
Like Thackery, Donna Buchert came to Columbia for the University of Missouri in the mid-1980s and started attending Missouri UMC then. She became chair of the board of trustees in February, after the death of Gruenewald.
“The building is really phenomenal,” she said. She loves having the gym back, the new dedicated contemporary worship space, the college ministry space right on 9th St., and offices that are much easier to access. She has also been pleased with the contractor, Little Dixie Construction, and is glad they will be working on the elevator project as well.
“We’ve gotten to know them, and they have gotten to know our building,” she said.
The elevator project is the next big thing for construction, but this fall the church when the church celebrates its 100th year it will enter a time of visioning to reflect on future planning for ministry.
“While I would never want to have a fire in my church, there were some silver linings,” Hilty said. “Right from the beginning, I had a front row seat to see how the leadership reacts and organizes in response to a crisis.”
Hilty said the changes were things their church would have needed to do over the next several years anyway.
“It’s been a beautiful, collaborative effort, taking time to not rush things, but develop a better vision for the ministries of the church,” Hilty said.
When Hilty was pastor at Linn Memorial UMC in Fayette, he was in a covenant group with Rev. James Bryan, who was pastor of Missouri UMC from 2000 to 2010. He recalls Bryan saying that the best way to be good stewards of the church’s resources was to have all of the space in the building being fully used all the time.
“I think that was really instilled in the congregation here,” Hilty said.
Hilty likens being at the church at this time to going on a hike and suddenly a beautiful rainbow appears in the sky.
“I understand how rainbows are formed, but that doesn’t explain why I get to be the person who gets to see it at that point and time,” Hilty said. “It’s by the grace of God that a wonderful thing happened here, and I’m grateful that I got to be here to see it.”