St. Mark's United Methodist Church
Encyclopedia
St. Mark's United Methodist Church is a United Methodist Church
United Methodist Church
The United Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination which is both mainline Protestant and evangelical. Founded in 1968 by the union of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, the UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley...

 in Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...

, United States of America on Six Forks Road. The current ministers at the church are the Reverend Ben Williams and The Reverend Lib Campbell.

History

In June of the year 1954 The Raleigh Board of Missions authorized the purchase of seven acres of land on Six Forks Road for $7,000 for a proposed new church and the Conference Board of Missions
North Carolina Annual Conference
The North Carolina Conference is an Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. This conference serves the eastern half of the state of North Carolina, with its administrative offices and the office of the bishop located in Raleigh, North Carolina. It is part of the Southeastern...

 authorized the purchase of an Armco steel building on December 18, 1954. The materials were delivered to the Six Forks site in mid-winter 1955-56. Two men, Dr. Thomas A. Collins and Walter Anderson, plus two helpers erected the building during January and February 1956 and made plans for the first service in March.

The first minister appointed to the church was a Duke Divinity
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

 student, Norman Sabin, who served as an interim pastor from April 1 until July 8, 1956. The first official letter on record was a letter by Reverend Sabin. It was mimeographed on the letterhead of the Board of Missions, North Carolina Annual Conference, Southeastern Jurisdiction of the Methodist Church. This letter was dated March 22, 1956, three days before the first service on Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in all four Canonical Gospels. ....

, March 25. This letter was hand delivered to the residents of the North Raleigh community.

The Reverend Henry Bizzell was appointed to be the church’s first full-time pastor at the by the bishop at the Annual Conference on June 28, 1956, and he assumed the duties of pastor on July 8, 1956. The first person received into the membership of the church was Emil Hoffman on the first Sunday of Rev. Bizzell’s ministry at St. Mark’s UMC.

Those first services were held in the temporary structure, a metal building with an A roof, that consisted of one large room serving as a sanctuary and a small classroom. Later a building committee was appointed. The first record of the building committee appeared in the July 15, 1956 church bulletin, and in the first issue of the St. Mark’s Newsletter on August 10, 1956, the building committee announced its schedule for 1956 and 1957, projecting that construction would begin on May 1, 1957. The next newsletter announced Mr. William Moore Weber as architect. The youth choir participated in the church service for the first time on October 21, 1956. At that time the enrollment had grown to about fifty. The first financial report appeared in the newsletter on November 6, 1956. Mrs. Margaret Munns was Church Treasurer and the income to date was listed as $2,189.77. One thousand dollars of that came from the Conference Board of Missions
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