TRAVERSE CITY -- The congregation of Central United Methodist Church can never say the Rev. Dale Ostema isn't a good sport. He's agreed to ride in for the church's 11 a.m. service on June 1 on horseback, dressed as a circuit rider preacher.
Ostema's portrayal, a tribute to the Rev. D. R. Latham, the Methodist Episcopal preacher who founded the church in 1858, is part of a three-week series of services celebrating the church's 150th anniversary.
The observance begins Sunday with services focusing on community. Invitations have been extended to county commissioners, Downtown Development Authority board members and all the churches within the Traverse City limits. In honor of its sesquicentennial, the church will present to the city a nine-place bike rack and three 6-foot Fraser firs to be installed at Sunset Park where the church has met for outdoor Sunday services each summer since 1969.
Ostema began his pastoral duties at Central in July 2007. As a relative newcomer to the established congregation, he immediately found himself immersed in preparations for the celebration.
"I found myself swept up in a wave of activity," he said.
That shouldn't have come as a surprise to Ostema, who already has been swept into a tsunami of outreach and service to the downtown Traverse City community that, for the nearly 1,400-member congregation, is just business as usual.
The red brick church with the dome located at 222 Cass St. has been more than a visual landmark to the city's downtown district. While other congregations outgrew their locations and opted for larger parcels of land in the outskirts of town, Central has thrived at its present location and expanded its presence with each recommitment the membership makes to serving the city's citizens and businesses.
As its name implies, Central's location plays an important role in the well-being of the city.
Chuck Judson, a longtime member of the church who served as a member of the Downtown Development Authority for 16 years, said the relationship between the church and downtown has always been a part of how the church has looked at its early ministry.
"In the 1960s we asked ourselves, do we need to move or stay?" Judson said. "The congregation said stay. We are committed to downtown. The church then made a conscious effort to remain and be a downtown ministry."
He said a Central staff member has been part of the Downtown Traverse City Association over the last 25 years to keep abreast of issues that affect local businesses. The church helps the city where it can by offering respite to weary visitors during Cherry Festival week and serving as a venue for events, conferences and entertainment performances. Central's day care program recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. In addition, Central's outreach ministry addresses the city's needs in other ways. The church plays an important role helping the needy and homeless.
The church's local mission program expanded during the aftermath of the Vietnam War when members sponsored and supported a Laotian family who was relocated to Traverse City. Today, the program continues to help Ukrainian families who have relocated to the area because of religious persecution. Church members help find adequate housing, furnishings, clothing and jobs.
Judy Kropf, the church's former community outreach liaison, said she and former pastor John Ellinger brought the church into the Safe Harbor program initiated by the First Church of the Nazarene when they learned that on cold winter nights, when the Goodwill Inn was full, the overflow of people needing shelter were sent to the jail.
"Mike Hornby, a board member of the Goodwill Inn and a church member at Central, helped get the church's program started," Kropf said. About three churches participated at first. Now in its fourth year, the program has expanded to several churches throughout the downtown area.
A 1980s renovation that added showers to the building and modernized the kitchen originally was intended for use by youth groups traveling to northern Michigan. Now during regular church hours, Central offers a place where those with nowhere else to turn can clean up, use the church as an address for resumès, pick up mail and access a phone to find a job.
The kitchen remodel provided the space for church members to put together free weekly meals, as they have done for the last 18 years.
"The amazing thing is that of the five teams we have, some members are the original ones who have been cooking and serving all these years," Kropf said. Central currently provides hot lunchtime meals each Thursday as part of an ecumenical effort to provide a meal every day of the week to those in need.
An aggressive youth outreach program started about 10 years ago has been refined into a progressive youth ministry with a staff trained to keep teens engaged in positive activities.
Margaret Knapp, a member of Central for more than 50 years, said the music programs have always drawn residents to the church. Besides its regular Sunday musical presentations of choirs, handbells and organ, the church has ties to the Interlochen Academy for the Arts through the late Bob Murphy, the church's director of music for 35 years, who also taught at Interlochen. Through the years, the academy's students have offered top-notch presentations and special holiday performances at the church.
"We look at ourselves as a corner of the downtown," Judson said.
The members say they're needed more than ever.
"This is the worst I've seen it in the last 12 years," Kropf said referring to economic conditions. "People are having trouble keeping their homes, paying utility bills, the needs are huge."
As the congregation hits its 150th milestone, members have been working on a new vision statement that again renews its commitment to downtown.
"We think sometimes we have no place to expand, maybe eventually we'll have to put a third story on the building," Knapp said. "But we want to stay here. We're so much more than a landmark."
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