Joplin church comes full circle since storm

JOPLIN, Mo. -- In the quiet, empty sanctuary of Unity of Joplin's building, rows of chairs and a handful of tables sit atop a recently restored hardwood floor.

That flooring could have gone undiscovered if not for what at first appeared to be a tragedy, minister Gordon Keyler said.

While work was being done on the roof of the building, a storm hit, flooding the carpet inside.

But while workers were cleaning the mess up, they discovered the hardwood underneath. The church decided to have it restored.

"There's been a lot of miracles associated with this building," Keyler said. "Things that looked like disasters but turned into something more."

Unity of Joplin has opened its new sanctuary in the former Joplin Women's Club building in Joplin, Missouri. (Roger Nomer ~ The Joplin Globe)

Work and restoration on the building on Jackson Avenue is winding down for the church, which purchased the site after losing its old building in the 2011 tornado.

"It really tells you what the spirit of this community is," Keyler said.

The church has been renovating the building for some time, Keyler said. The church has been working with the city's historic preservation commission to see the building restored to the way it looked in the mid-20th century.

The roof has been replaced, the walls have been repaired, the original stained glass windows have been restored -- along with the chandelier and the antique iron work.

The commercial grade kitchen has also been repaired, said Suzi Back, who has been a member of the church since 1985. Shelves in the kitchen are filled with dishes used when the building was home to the Joplin Woman's Club, and the church wants to use those for potlucks or other events when other groups use the building.

The church's vision is to make the building available for the community to use, Keyler said.

"Our vision is to be a community center, to be a place where people can gather," he said.

Until May 2011, Unity of Joplin made its home at its site on 20th Street. The church had been at the location long enough that plat maps at the courthouse just read "Unity Church," Back recalled.

When the tornado hit, the building was flattened. The church wanted to maintain a presence in the community, so it started looking at different sites for a permanent home. When the former women's club building was checked out, something just felt right, Back said.

Janet Garvin, who has been part of the church for more than 40 years, was on the committee to find a new church. She remembers that when she walked into the building, she knew it would be the church's new home.

Unity of Joplin closed on the building in March 2012 and held its first service there on Easter Sunday.

But the building needed work. A lot of work.

Calvary Baptist Church had originally constructed the building in 1911, Keyler said, and at some point, the women's club purchased the site and used it for many years, until the mid-1980s.

When the church moved into the building, it had been unoccupied for several years, Back said. The ivy that had covered the building had damaged the walls. The chandelier was corroded. Asbestos needed to be removed. Back recalls that on that first Easter service, the building had running water, but no heat.

"There was no part of this building that we didn't touch," Keyler said.

A combination of insurance money and donations from Unity churches around the world allowed the church to buy and restore the property. However, figuring out how to make the restoration happen largely fell on the shoulders of the small congregation, Back said. The church's previous minister had left about a year before the tornado hit, and a part-time interim minister started working with the church about six months after the tornado.

Surviving a tornado is a challenge for any church, said Keyler, who was hired as the minister in August.

Now, renovations to the building are winding down. The basement still needs to be fixed up -- it will likely be used as a classroom for teenagers -- and some landscaping work remains to be done. The church is planning a dedication of the building in January, Keyler said.

The renovations have been a way for the church to put its faith into action, Back said. And with renovations winding down, the church is working to recast its vision outward, Keyler said.

"One of the visions the board has set is that now we have finished the inside work, now we are ready to be a blessing in the community," he said.

Information from: The Joplin (Mo.) Globe, http://www.joplinglobe.com