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BY CHRISTINE KUMAR
UMCONNECTION STAFF

Four United Methodist churches are teaming up to overcome racial divisions and provide a new community center for the town of Deale.

The churches, Cedar Grove, St. Matthews in Shady Side, Franklin and Centenary UMCs, united together to form South County Community Development, a non-profit organization. 'The linking together of the four churches was an intentional strategy to bridge some of the racial divisions that still exist in the community,' said the Rev. Kevin Baker, who served as pastor of Cedar Grove UMC for many years and is now at Oakdale-Emory UMC in Olney.

Franklin and St. Matthews UMCs have predominantly African-American parishioners while Cedar Grove and Centenary are made up of mostly white members.

Cedar Grove plans to buy a 15-acre property from Safeway, which is located in the center of the town, where approximately 4,800 people live.

The project will cost close to $8 million, $2.5 million of which is exclusively for the land, said Jordan Matejceck, project manager and administrative council chair of Cedar Grove UMC. 'Once we get the land it will probably be two years before we break ground,' he said. They must first get county permits and funds. 'It will be built in phases.'

The Family Life Center will be open to all residents, Matejceck said. 'This effort is to provide a place to bring the community together. It?s an attempt to bring closer not only racially divided, but also people of different economic and occupational backgrounds; it?s going to be a place where everybody is welcome.'

The center will have a gym, track, swimming pool, therapy pool, meeting rooms and possibly a skate park and a paint-ball area. Currently, the community uses space at schools and churches, such as Cedar Grove UMC, for meetings and other gatherings.

'The staff will be disciples of Jesus who have a heart to meet the needs of people in the community,' Baker said. The center then becomes a tool for making disciples of Jesus Christ. We don?t care which church people plug into, we merely want to introduce them to the savior of the world and plug them into the community of believers called the church,' he said.

Safeway spokesman, Greg TenEyck told the Capital Gazette newspaper in July that negotiations are in process and nothing has been settled yet.

However, Matejceck and everyone involved in this project are hopeful that they will purchase the land. Once the land is purchased, the churches plan to start a campaign to raise funds for the project. They are looking for community involvement and sponsors for support.