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11/12/1999 10:18 6127860658• SUNRISE UMCTED MET PAGE 01 eit/4491, •r5 �F4 r r 4�A. ,: , y...; ' ` Sunrise Methodist Church was organised in January •• ,' t •1.^r,;.�� 4.,� y` of 1954 at the Sunnyside School in New Brighton. A moving 4 force in the organization was Dr. E. B.Cooney,St.Paul Dis- trict Superintendent. The congregation continued to meet • at Sunnyside until November of 1957 when if moved into its new building at 2520 County Road I in Mounds View. By the summer of 1954, when the charter list was closed, 83 persons had become members of Sunrise Church. For• the first two years the Sunrise pastor lived in a rented par- sonage. By 1956 a parsonage had been built with much of • the labor donated by members of the congregation. Next r. '••,••t•,• ' -' an old church building was moved to the present church site erw from West St. Paul. This was to be a temporary meeting • `' " place until a new structure could be built. The mover Who • ;' brought the old church here from West St.Paul did not,have the proper moving permit, he was apprehended by the police after the church building hit a power line and knocked out the electrical service for a large section of St. Paul, He was fined $150.00. Financial problems made it necessary to incorporate the old church building in plans for the new. A basement was built beneath the old building, the peaked roof was replaced by a flat roof, and a ground-level educational unit was built around it. The result was a "split-level sanctuary"with the overflow area some three feet higher than the chapel in the new part of the building. The Rev. Arthur Beckendorf, a retired Methodist missionary, was appointed as interim pastor of the newly formed Sunrise congregation and served here from January, 1954, until June of that same year. At the June, 1954, Annual. Conference a full-time pastor was appointed to serve the congregation. He was the Rev. Robert Armand who, with his wife and three children, came here from a pastorate in Ohio. The Rev. Armand ed here for 5 years and then was forced to retire because of failing health. In 1959 the Rev.Donald Sheffield to Sunrise church and was here for 3 years. In 1962 the Rev.Sheffield moved to Hutchinson,Minnesota and the Rev, William Foster became this church's third pastor. He served here until April of 1964, at which time he accepted an appointment to serve a Methodist church in Cannan, Connecticut. For six weeks the Rev. W. Erie Shields, a retired Methodist minister, served the congregation. In May of 1964,the present pastor came to Sunrise from Walker Methodist Church of Howard Lake,MN. On May 6, 1965, the church and parsonage were struck by a tornado. The church was considered a total loss by the insurance company and the parsonage suffered about $6000 damage. Plans were begun immedi- ately for a new building. Throughout the summer the congregation met for worship in the Bel Rae Ballroom, about four blocks from the church site. In the fall it began meeting in the Red Oak School and continued there for a year. During the summer the congregation tore down the remaining church structure and sold much of the salvageable material. With some professional help, members of the congregation built a three-car garage in order to_pr-ovide_par-king-fsr-the_parsonage ears_and additional storage for the church. Construction on a new church began in December, 1965, and the congregation moved into the new structure in September of 1966. The con- tractor for the new church was Henning Nelson. The architect was Roger T. Johnson, Total Cost was about $200,000. In September, 1967, the church and the architect received an award for architectural excellence from the Minnesota Society of Architects. Sunrise church was the only church in Minnesota to share in such an award in 1967. During the fall and spring, 1966-67, members of the congregation laid nearly 3000 yards of sod around the new building. In the summer of 1967 they installed parking lot lights and that fall the parking lot was black- topped. An additional sidewalk was added and a landscape project begun in the spring of 1968. From October of 1972 until November of 1973 the Abiding Savior Lutheran congregation rented our facilities for most of their mid-week activities while their new building was under construction. This was a very busy time for Sunrise with two congregations making use of the same space, especially in view of the fact that their congregation is about 3 times larger than ours. In September of 1972 the Fellowship Hall was carpeted to make space more usable with less noise. In January of 1974 the Sunrise congregation celebrated its 20th anni- 4persary with District Superintendent Clarence Nicholas as guest speaker. The congregation has grown from an original 83 to a present 540. Budget-wise it has gone from an annual figure of around $12,000 to a present figure of around$53,000. The 1973-74 year has seen a church-wide spiritual renewal which we believe will be of lasting significance. In the fall of 1974 we are planning to have a pastor's assistant from nearby New Brighton Seminary. We are also presently involved in plans for the final edu- rational unit to be added on the north side of our present structure. All in all,the future looks bright for Sunrise as it moves out into the second twenty year period of its life in Northern Suburbia.