Parkview Methodist Church History

Eighty Years of Parkview Methodist Church History: 1944 – 2024

Summer of 1944

Work to plant a Methodist church in the Parkview area was started by Miss Barbara Summerville and Mr. Harold Fink, a student minister sent to help the church get started. Mr. Finch was paid by the Conference with funds allocated for this type of work under the Crusade for Christ movement. Harold and Barbara made a thorough survey of the community that summer. In the fall Harold went back to college, but Barbara stayed on.

 

September 2, 1944

The first prayer meetings were held in the home of Mrs. Virginia Hayes on 73^rd Street. Later, some of the meetings began to be held in the homes of other people in the neighborhood who were interested in helping to start a church.

 

Spring of 1945

With the help of Barbara and Dr. Lipscomb, the Methodist Church District Superintendent, a rental unit was secured in Richard Court in the Briarfield Manor apartments located on Briarfield Road. It was there that they began holding Sunday School for children and Bible School for adults. Mrs. Hayes taught the children’s class and Miss. Summerville taught the adult class. One Sunday morning a little girl playing in the street became curious and wandered in to see what was going on. She stayed for class and the next Sunday she was there and brought her brother and sister with her. She continued to attend regularly until the meeting place moved.

 

November 4, 1945

Dr. Lipscomb made a visit to Virginia Hayes, but he brought with him some bad news. The Virginia Conference felt that the number of people trying to start the church was too small and they weren’t well organized enough to guarantee giving them support, but Dr. Lipscomb agreed to let it continue for a while longer if it was organized.

 

November 5, 1945

The next day, while the men were busy at work, Virginia called Ovella Rilee to help get the ladies together to discuss the situation with the church. Six members in all got together and had a meeting in the home of Ovella and elected officers for the church. They then called Dr. Lipscomb back and he found them to be so determined that he agreed to let them continue forming the church and said that he would get them some help from the conference.

 

December 1945

Dr. Lipscomb spoke with Rev. Boyd E. Hudson, a retired minister, and asked him to conduct the first worship service. Rev Hudson served for about four months and then turned things over to Hudson Hornsby. Mr. Hornsby was a ministerial student at Randolph Macon College and agreed to serve as pastor.

 

January 1946

The church moved from Briarfield Manor apartments into another rental, this one located at 629 Briarfield Road. Here changes were made in the teachers. Mr. F.A. Clark taught the adult class, Mrs. Thomas Gaylord taught the junior class and Mrs. H. W. Smith taught a class for beginners. The first vacation church school was held here. 

 

March 31, 1946

The Rev. Hudson Hornsby became the first regular Virginia Conference Pastor to be appointed to what would become Parkview Methodist Church. He served until September 1950 when he left to attend Emory University. He worked full time during the summer and went to school during the remainder of the year, coming each Sunday to preach. His work is responsible for the organization and growth of Parkview Methodist Church.

 

July 28, 1946

Under the leadership of Rev. Hornsby, Parkview Methodist Church was officially organized. The ceremony was held in a Presbyterian Church located on Briarfield Road with Dr. Lipscomb officiating. That day there were fifteen charter members recognized. Thirteen joined Parkview by letter of transfer and two were received by profession of faith and baptism. There were also five others whose letters had not yet been received, but they were recognized as being charter members. Following the service, a brief quarterly Conference was held and to officially elect officers for the church.

 

July 1947

The Briarfield Road building being used for worship services was sold, so the church had to look for another place to meet. Mr. Tims, who manages the Dr. Pepper Building located on Jefferson Avenue, graciously allowed the church to meet in the building rent free. The church had to work out transportation for some of its members to hold services at this building. The leaders were able to rent a school bus from Mr. White, who owned all the school buses being used for Warwick County Schools at that time. Mr. White also furnished a driver. The bus would pick up the regular church members from the old location on Briarfield Road. With a place to worship and a means to transport members the church began to grow. They eventually began holding both Sunday morning and evening services. With Rev. Hudson Hornsby being a ministerial student, he wasn’t always available for Sunday evenings, but the services continued with the members singing songs, reading scripture and praying.

 

November 1948

November 1948 was a busy month. The Finance Committee was established, the Woman’s Society was organized, and the Board of Education was established. Around this time, the church leaders heard that Mr. J. M. Dozier had a lot on Briarfield Road that he would like to give to a group who would build a church on it. One Sunday afternoon Hudson Hornsby, Woodrow and Ovella Rilee and their two children drove to Yorktown, Virginia to meet with Mr. Dozier. Ovella stayed in the car with her two children while Hudson and Woodrow met with Mr. Dozier. When they came back to the car, Ovella knew that they had the lot because they were grinning from ear to ear. Mr. Dozier agreed to give them the lot providing that they built a church on it. He told Hudson and Woodrow to see Mr. Phil Murray, his lawyer, and he would draw up the papers. Mr. Murray was very kind and even made a donation to help the church get started. Mr. Henry Garnett served as the attorney for the church at no cost. Mr. Walter Rilee at the Bank of Hampton Roads helped guide the church in financial matters.

The church leaders heard that there was five thousand dollars available through the Crusade for Christ movement for new church buildings but were disappointed to find out that the money was only available to help with the cost of church buildings that were almost completed. The five thousand dollars would have served as a last payment. The church members doubled their efforts to raise money. They had rummage sales in an old building on Jefferson Avenue, a bazaar in the Coca-Cola plant located downtown, dinners in different churches and baked goods were sold from church members’ homes.

 

Spring 1949

The leaders of the church secured a construction contract to have the church building erected. A groundbreaking service was held with Mrs. Lula Seull and Mrs. Pauline Kemp, the two oldest members of the church turning over the first shovel of dirt where they hoped would be the building for Parkview Methodist Church. Shortly after beginning work on the building the contractor declared bankruptcy’ This caused the church to lose one thousand five hundred dollars. All that the church had to show for their efforts were some doors and a steeple. They stored these in a garage hoping to use them later.

 

October 1949

The church moved on and was able to get bids from several other contractors. Mr. T. A. Watson & Son came in with the lowest bid of $11,450. The church leaders accepted this bid, but then ran into another problem. Getting funds to finance the work was not an easy task. Banks did not want to lend that much money to such a small group. Fortunately, the church received two donations of $1,500. With this added to a grant from the Crusade for Christ movement and money that the church had on hand, construction on the church building began.

 

February 19, 1950

The building was ready, but no benches were available. Through the efforts of Rev.E. Been and Rev. Vaughn, benches were contributed by Chaplin Graham from a surplus at Langley Airforce Base. The first worship service was held in the completed sanctuary. In 1953, Mrs. Betty Walker became a member of Parkview Methodist Church. In 1969, Mrs. Walker was hired as the first paid secretary. By her faithful and dedicated service, the church records of members, marriages, baptisms, and deaths have been organized and documented. She helped in the printing of the worship service bulletins and the monthly calendar events. She performed many secretarial duties over fifty years under fifteen pastors until she retired in 2019.

 

December 12, 1965

A larger church sanctuary building was built and consecrated. The old sanctuary was adjoined to the new church building and remolded for use as a fellowship hall and kitchen. Woodrow Rilee died of a heart attack in 1959 and never got to see the larger church building he worked so hard to get built. A Sunday school room was named in his honor.

From 1950 to 1965 three parsonages were obtained. The first was a rental unit in Briarfield Manor, the second was a house on St. Paul Street and the third was a small house on the lot adjoining the church property. The house on St. Paul Street was later sold. The small house adjoining the church property was eventually removed and a new brick parsonage was built in its place. Nine pastors served Parkview Methodist Church during this period.

 

1968

The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged to form the United Methodist Church. Parkview Methodist Church elected to join the UMC, and the name was changed to Parkview United Methodist Church.

 

2004 – 2019

Turmoil Over Sexuality Growing Within the UMC: Early in the existence of the UMC homosexual people were seeking to be included as ordained ministers. While other Christian Denominations began to fall to secular pressure and allow openly homosexual people to be ordained, the UMC held firm in stating that it was not compatible with Biblical teachings. As the years progressed, the homosexual community began to broaden its scope, eventually settling on the acronym LGBTQ+. Between 2004 and 2019 pressure on the UMC from the homosexual community was building. In 2019 the UMC held a ‘Special Called General Conference’ that was supposed to ‘once and for all’ settle the matter. When the votes were counted, the UMC had held firm on not ordaining LGBTQ+ persons. Not happy with the outcome, members of the LGBTQ+ leadership announced (from the conference platform) that they were not going away. The UMC had held this special conference at the request of the LGBTQ+ community. It had brought people together from all over the world (at a cost of nearly four million dollars) to specifically address this one issue. Not getting the outcome they had hoped for, the homosexual community vowed that the pressure was going to continue. The General Conference leadership, feeling that this may happen, created a way for churches to disaffiliate from the UMC, but the window for leaving would close for good on December 31, 2023.

The members of Parkview, wishing to remain a Biblically Sound church and stand on the fact that God created male and female for each other, elected to go through the process of disaffiliation.

 

December 31, 2023

From 1968 until December of 2023 Parkview was a part of the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church. During those 55 years the conference appointed fifteen different pastors to serve the members.

As of December 31, 2023, Parkview was no longer connected to the United Methodist Church and changed the name back to Parkview Methodist Church. The last pastor appointed to Parkview by the Virginia Conference, Clyde Leon Basham, Jr., elected to retire from the UMC and continue serving the people of Parkview, thus becoming the first independent pastor to do so.

 

UMC 2024

In the spring of 2024, just months after Parkview had disaffiliated, the UMC held a regularly scheduled General Conference. This time the delegates voted to allow LGBTQ+ people to be ordained. They also voted to remove all barriers that would prevent same sex marriages from taking place within United Methodist Churches. If Parkview had not disaffiliated from the UMC, we would have, by default, been telling the world that we were in agreement with these things.

 

Today

Many years ago, a small group of believers in Christ were determined to, with God’s help, start a church. Since then, there have been many changes to the community, but through it all Parkview Methodist Church has continued to serve and honor Jesus Christ while staying true to His Holy Word.