Church vows to rise again following four-alarm fire
By Erik Alsgaard & Melissa Lauber
UMConnection Staff
A four-alarm fire, which took more than 100 firefighters seven hours to extinguish, gutted the interior of Northwood-Appold UMC in Baltimore Dec. 27, but the cross atop the church remained standing.
In the aftermath of the blaze, the firefighters who took down the cross and steeple marveled at how the cross defied the odds to remain undamaged. That same spirit of survival also spread through the congregation and community as church members and community leaders vowed to “rebuild and rise again.”
On the Sunday morning two days after the fire, more than 100 people gathered at the education building across the street from the burned out brick sanctuary. The church’s pastor, the Rev. Cecil Gray, called the steeple’s survival a miracle. He told those present that the church will rebuild and that, even in their grief, the congregation will only grow stronger. “Resurrection is occurring even now,” he said.
Baltimore City Councilwoman, Mary Pat Clark of District 14, stopped by to visit the church and to make a contribution to the offering plate. “This church is a light at the crossroads of its community. Nothing will deter it from rising again,” she said.
The Rev. Cynthia Moore-Koikoi, superintendent of the Baltimore Metropolitan District, assured church members that they are loved and will be taken care of. “The flames did destroy the building, but the flames don’t have the power to destroy what that building represents,” she said. “There isn’t any flame on earth or in hell that can destroy what that building represents.”
One of the things that makes Northwood-Appold so special, pointed out Bishop Marcus Matthews, is that it hosts and operates a public charter school for 332 students in grades K-5. Their impact in the community is significant, said the bishop.
The church’s focus on youth was especially apparent during worship, when half of the congregation came forward for the message to the young members. The youth talked about the fire and their sadness and decided together that “a church is a bunch of people who are Christ-like and Christ-minded. They come together to receive a word so they can go out and live out that word during the week.”
“Our church didn’t burn,” said Nick Poole, one of the young adult members who served last year as president of the conference Council on Youth Ministries. “We are still here. We are still a church without a church building.”
Such feelings seemed to span the generations. On the morning of the fire, two of the church’s older members, Warren and Janice Teeple, stood at the intersection of Loch Raven Boulevard and Cold Spring Road. The crystal clear winter’s day allowed them to see right through the church building, where they have been members since 1947. Now both in their early 90s, the Teeples couldn’t believe what they were seeing. “I’m very sad,” said Janis.
The Teeples’ four children grew up in the church, she said, and she had cooked hundreds of meals in the church’s kitchen. Both Janis and Warren were Scout leaders, she said, and they both sang in the choir.
“This church is just part of you,” Janis said. “I’ve been up since 3 o’clock. I heard the roar of the fire trucks and I looked out my front window. I couldn’t see the church, but when I walked outside, I just went ‘oh, it’s the church.’”
The Rev. Raphael Koikoi, associate pastor at Emory UMC in Washington, D.C., received his call to ministry in 1990, while he was a member of Northwood-Appold. He was at the church, taking photographs.
“The church has always been a beacon in this community,” he said. “Since 2002, the vision has been one of excellence in education.”
The fire “tore down a place that I call home, a place of lots of memories: first sermon, first youth ministry position, my first experience of a female pastor,” said Koikoi. In the wake of the fire, he said he’s “been reminded that the church is family.”
In the hours and days that followed the fire, many members of that “family” checked in via social media. On Sunday morning before worship, Michel Parker printed out 12 pages of messages to them via Facebook.
In the messages, people shared memories of being baptized, confirmed or married at the church. Others remembered how the church was a fixture in the community and how its bells, which chimed at 6 p.m. each day, called the neighborhood kids to their homes for dinner. Everyone pledged to pray for the church.
Sandy Ferguson, director of connectional ministries for the Baltimore-Washington Conference, is expecting that churches around the conference will join in these prayers and in the rebuilding. Just hours after the fire had been put out, the BWC’s disaster response team and Volunteers in Mission were considering how they might provide assistance.
“This is what the connectional system does, we support each other in times of crisis with prayer, resources and hands-on help,” Ferguson said.
“I know you have to grieve. I know there will be more tears,” Moore-Koikoi told the congregation. “But I promise you, we will be here with you until the day we all march back into that building and consecrate it to the glory of God.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
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