Commemorating a century at Centenary

Occupied for the first time on April 4, 1915, Easter Sunday, the Centenary United Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau recently celebrated its centennial. It replaced a building that burned to the ground a year earlier. The current building was remodeled in 1975, but it has stood for a century.

Though no one from 1915 is left to tell of its earliest beginnings, the Rev. David Conley, and member Barbara Rust both shared details that speak to the building's tradition and continued impact.

Conley has been pastor at Centenary since 2012, but he commemorated the centennial this past Easter Sunday by calling attention to the landmark date; accompanist Bev Reece played a special offertory on the pipe organ.

Barbara Rust has been at the church much longer than Conley, having been "born and raised" there.

"My family came here in 1930, and I grew up in the church," she said. At age 10, she became an official member. The boy she she would eventually court came to Cape around the same time, and they would sit in a two-person pew in the balcony. On one particular Sunday, Dr. R.C. Holliday, the pastor she described as small in stature with "an orator's voice," was preaching that separation from God will send a person to hell.

When he spoke the word "hell," Rust said, the balcony began to rock. The couple was about to jump from it to the aisle below, a drop of at least 10 feet, when the rocking ceased. The earthquake had ended. She now has been married to that man for 61 years.

"We were married in the church," she said, "and I jokingly say I want to be buried beneath the center aisle."

Conley and Rust have a deep appreciation for the church building's uniqueness. Both mentioned the stained glass windows as central to what sets it apart from more modern places of worship.

"The stained glass windows and the sense of sacred space in the sanctuary distinguish Centenary," Conley said. Rust echoed the sentiment, calling attention to the beauty of the "wonderful stained glass windows in our church." She used her fascination for those windows she grew up gazing at by researching and writing a book about them. "The Art of Centenary" was published in 2006 and provides details about the windows, as well as reflections of growing up as a member of the congregation.

Rust was careful to point out, however, that the stained glass windows there now are not from the original building that burned, but are copies of old masters and have been there since the rebuild.

In addition to its windows, what makes the 100-year-old edifice unique is it is made of limestone that was quarried only about three blocks away, Rust said, where Southeast Missouri State University's Houck stadium now stands.

Furthermore, she said, Centenary is a "pretty church and has grandeur. It also has "the gray old lady -- the grandmotherly look about the church." It has the "old-style architecture" that all Methodist churches built at that time have," she said.

It takes more than stained glass and limestone to keep the doors of a church open for so long.

So what has been the key to the church's longevity?

Said Conley: "Centenary Church still has the 'critical mass' of resources, including people, to fulfill our mission of making disciples of Jesus, rooted in the United Methodist understanding of grace: God loves us enough to meet us wherever we are, and loves us too much to leave us there."

Rust spoke of the church's ministries, which include a community basketball program, a kneel-and-worship service, children and adult Sunday School, a choir and praise band, services at retirement homes, Bible studies, prayer groups and outreach to foreign students at the college. Rust tutors foreign students in conversational English.

"Anything you could have at any church, we probably have it." She praised the preschool also, which, she said, has been called "the premier preschool in Cape Girardeau."

"Centenary Church, and the church building," Conley said, "are uniquely positioned to make a significant difference in what we call our immediate service area, within a one-mile radius of the campus, which includes Southeast Missouri State University, the Old Town Cape area and the residential area."

While many newer churches have come and gone, Rust said, Centenary UMC remains in part because despite "a big movement to very contemporary worship, a lot of young people want the pipe organ, the choir and the ritual they grew up with."

Centenary has that. It has a contemporary service in a gymnasium as well.

"There are people, however, who find the Sabbath a special day, and we enjoy the ritual we have had in the Methodist church," she said.

Beyond the ritual, the architecture and even the vital ministries of the church, Rust attributes her standing as a lifelong member -- one who was "born and raised there" and hopes to "be buried beneath the center aisle" -- to meaningful relationships.

"It's always the connections and the people," she said.