History:

Lewisburg United Methodist Church is the product of a merger of Calvary and Memorial United Methodist Churches of Lewisburg, Ohio, each with a rich history over 150 years. The two congregations merged December 2, 2001. Each church had its own building and the Calvary building was selected for continued use by the combined congregation. That building was built in the 1960s following a fire in their old building. The Memorial church was sold and now is home to another congregation.

Both facilities had significant inadequacies with limited sanctuary seating, limited parking and insufficient meeting room space. Almost immediately after the merger, a building committee was formed to investigate construction of a new and larger facility in which to worship.

In 2002, Janice Harmon, wife of the late Dayton car dealership owner, Larry Harmon, donated 15 acres of land on Route 40 West of Lewisburg to be used for a new worship and community center.

The building committee operated from its beginning under the leadership of Seth Schlotterbeck. After many, many hours of discussion by the committee and members of the congregation, a three phase plan was developed and preliminary building sketches were prepared by the McKnight Group in Grove City, Ohio. The cost was estimated to be approximately $2,000,000 for the first phase that included a 300-seat multi-purpose auditorium, offices and Sunday School rooms.

The sale of the Memorial Church had yielded $180,000. To raise the additional funds to finance construction of this facility, the congregation hired Resource Services, Inc. (RSI) of Dallas, Texas, to lead us in a major capital stewardship campaign. Gerald Cleveland of RSI guided the campaign committee and several sub-committees through this endeavor. The campaign resulted in raising over $550,000 in initial cash and pledges. A subsequent matching gifts program sponsored by an anonymous donor raised another $100,000. Since the end of these efforts, more gifts from the congregation and United Methodist Church organizations and a major bequest brought the total to over $800,000.

A finance sub-committee of the building committee was formed to seek a lender to finance the balance of the project. In April of 2004, a Dayton bank agreed to loan up to $1,300,000 for the project and Maple Leaf Construction was hired to construct a 16,000 square foot facility at 3147 US Route 40 East, Lewisburg, Ohio. Mike Harrison, president and owner of Maple Leaf Construction, provided personal leadership in building the new facility. Congregation member, David Norvell, agreed to act as project coordinator responsible for all site work outside of the building. On May 15, 2004, ground was broken and the actual building project began.