Dr. Clarence E. Lemmon and Educational Building
On February 5, 1929, the First Christian Church in downtown Columbia opened up bids for the construction of a new educational building adjacent to their church building on 10th street. Eugene Groves, a Denver based architect designed the building and the corner stone was laid on May 5, 1929 and it was completed and dedicated on December 8, that same year. The congregation would later name the building after church leaders Dr. Clarence E. Lemmon and his wife. An atrium was built between the educational building and the main church building in 1990. In 1991, First Christian Church was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The registration form describes the educational building as follows:
“Dr. Carl Agee became pastor of First Christian Church on January 1, 1928, and accepted the responsibility and problems encountered with a large congregation that had outgrown its church building. Efforts to raise money for a new church had met with failure, and evidence of a depression loomed on the horizon. Despite the bleak financial conditions, the church made plans for an addition to the church… Work proceeded quickly with the education wing and remodeling of the old church sanctuary. On May 5, 1929, special ceremonies marked the cornerstone laying. The building was completed and dedicated on December 8, 1929, shortly before Agee presented his resignation as pastor. He had accpeted a position with Missouri Bible College and eventually would become dean of the college.
Eugene Groves, a Denver, Colorado, architect, drew the plans for the Education Building, which was erected in 1929. At that time, the Sanctuary underwent interior alterations. The location of the altar changed from the north side to the center of the church auditorium. In spite of this and other minor changes, the Sanctuary retains a high degree of integrity. The design of the Education Building was highly compatible with that of the original church structure. Together, the Sanctuary and the Education Building form an impressive ensemble, conveying a sense of grandeur and history.
The architecture of the Education Building, though more restrained and classical, echoes that of the Sanctuary in several respects. Gables on the north and south ends and above the central projecting bay of the east facade are not as steep, but are clearly in harmony with the high gables of the Sanctuary. The arched windows of the central bay and the arched entrance portico complement the more dramatic windows and porticoes of the original church building. The stone construction in a rough random ashlar pattern, the rectangular shape, and the horizontal massing of this later addition are perfectly compatible with those of the original structure.”
Lemmon Education Building
As pictured in the National Register of Historic Places form
Dr. Clarence E. Lemmon was a national leader of the Disciples of Christ denomination and a brief biography of him found in the National Register of Historic Places registration form, prepared by Mary K. Dains and Bonnie Stepenoff, is reproduced below.
“First Christian Church is potentially significant under Criterion B, in the area of religion, for its association with the distinguished career of Dr. Clarence E. Lemmon, who became pastor in 1930 and served the longest pastorate at the church - 33 years. Dr. Lemmon's pastorate continued into the 1960s. The passage of time will provide the perspective needed to evaluate his historical importance.
Dr. Lemmon earned a national reputation as a prolific writer, an eloquent speaker, and a champion of "open membership" in the Christian Church. In 1966, Professor Parker Rossman of the Yale Divinity School described Lemmon as a pioneer and leader in the open membership movement and "one of the greatest protestant preachers of his generation."9
Local historian John Crighton assessed Lemmon's career in the following words:
"Although Dr. Lemmon retained Columbia as his home base, he acquired a national repuation in the 1930s and 1940s as a member of the group of outstanding Protestant preachers which included Harry Emerson Fosdick, Reinhold Niebuhr, Sherwood Eddy, and John R. Mott. In 1942, he was elected president of the Disciple's national convention. He advocated open membership,' i.e. the admission of members of other denominations to the communion service. From his pulpit he denounced the smear tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy and was an outspoken champion of the civil rights of minorities and of other liberal political and economic”
Dr. Lemmon served as president of the Missouri Council of Churches, traveled as a delegate to the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work in Stockholm, Sweden in 1925, and became president of the Ecumenical Council in 1927. At that time, he also served on the executive committee of the United Christian Missionary Society, the first of many, national offices he would hold in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
Shortly after arriving in Columbia, Dr. Lemmon faced one of his most difficult challenges. Plagued by deepening depression, his congregation appeared unable to meet interest payments on the debt incurred in the new education building and remodeling project. Dr. Lemmon, church elders, finance committee chairman and a Columbia lawyer renegotiated the funding with the bondholder and saved the building from foreclosure. Other major events included the Centennial Convention of Missouri Disciples of Christ, hosted by the Columbia Christian Chursh on September 22-26, 1937. Dr. Lemmon served as chairman of the convention. In 1958, First Christian Church became the "mother" church for Columbia's Broadway Christian Church. Members pledged funds for the church and purchased the land near the city's western city limits. Ground breaking occurred, July 5, 1958, with dedication of the building on October 4, 1959. Some one hundred members of First Christian Church moved their memberships to begin the new congregation.
During Dr. Lemmon's ministry in Columbia, he married 916 couples, received 630 new permanent members and 1,283 student members into the church and officiated at more than 1,770 funerals. In great demand for funeral services, Dr. Lemmon always found something significant to say about the deceased. His popular sermons never lasted more than 20 minutes and were characterized by clear organization, simple language, pithy content and interesting illustrations drawn from everyday experience, current events and literature. His "year end" sermons analyzed the events of the past year in their historical significance. Widely anticipated, these sermons were repeated at service clubs and printed in local newspapers.
Dr. Lemmon's speech, "The Crisis of Fellowship," was cited in The Churchman as the best submitted from the entire country. The U.S. ambassador read it to the United Nations. Dr. Lemmon delivered one of his last public speeches, perhaps to his largest audience, at the Kansas City convention, October 2, 1961. More than 10,000 persons heard his keynote address. When he strongly defended the National Council of Churches in its social activism toward the issues of the sixties, the audience applauded.
A liberal from the first, Dr. Lemmon was influenced by the social gospel of Harry Emerson Fosdick and Reinhold Niebuhr. Summers of graduate study at the University of Chicago had brought him under the "radical" influence of Edward Scribner Ames, the Hyde Park Church and the Disciples Divinity House.
Dr. Lemmon aroused controversy because of his belief in open membership. Joseph Belcastro, in "The Disciples of Christ and Baptism" (1963), a historical study of open membership, stated that the national convention's election of C.E. Lemmon as president in 1942 caused a split between the fundamental and liberal wings of the Christian Church. The Christian Standard and the Christian-Evangelist respectively represented these wings.
Parker Rossman, an associate professor of religion in higher education at Yale University Divinity School, served under Dr. Lemmon as associate minister of First Christian. Rossman wrote a retrospective article about Dr. Lemmon in World Call in May 1966. He described Dr. Lemmon as "a controversial figure":
He was known as a pioneer and leader in the "open membership movement." He was outspoken in civil rights and liberal political and economic causes....He was on the board of an insurance company, and wealthy persons and conservative businessmen commonly came to him for advice about managing their money and investments....He was one parish minister who never had trouble with his church staff....Dr. Lemmon was himself so secure in his faith that he was not threatened by an associate minister with more education. He was so psychologically secure that he could take a back seat and push others to the limelight. The Negro janitor was a valued colleague and friend... The associate minister was thoroughly consulted on everything...
I heard him preach [a] sermon to a group of intellectuals, university professors, artists and writers. They went away raving with enthusiasm about Dr. Lemmon's intellectual power, his education, his artistic, intellectual imagination. Then I heard him preach the same sermon out in the country in a rural revival tent meeting. He hardly changed a word or a tone of his voice, and the farmers and laborers present were moved to tears by the same artistry. They understood every word and complimented him for the simplicity and evangelical power of his preaching.
[He] was a great pastor because of his commitment to the local church, to preaching and to pastoral care. He turned down positions of brotherhood leadership because he saw what a parish minister could do in one town and one church if he stayed thirty years..
Not only did Dr. Lemmon lecture widely on church and public affairs, but he also wrote prolifically. From 1932 to 1963, he was a literary editor of World Call, a national magazine of the Disciples. For this publication, he contributed a monthly book review column. He also published articles in the Christian-Evangelist and The Christian Century and wrote two books: The Art of Church Management (1933) and Religion Helps (1941). Dr. Lemmon edited and contributed to Preaching on Old Testament Themes (1963) and Preaching on New Testament Themes (1964). One of a panel of scholars, he contributed to The Renewal of Church (1963), a three-volume study of the Disciples of Christ. Both Cotner and Culver-Stockton colleges presented him with D.D.degrees.
After coming to Columbia, Dr. Lemmon held many offices and memberships in numerous church organizations. He served as chairman of the Missouri Centennial Commission of the Disciples, 1933-1937, and president of the State Convention of the Disciples of Christ in 1939. He became a charter trustee of the Pension fund in 1930, a director of the Ministers Life and Casualty Union, and served on the boards of the Disciples Divinity House, the National Benevolent Association and the Association for Christian Unity. In 1950, he represented the Disciples at the founding convention of the National Council of Churches and was a member of the second assembly of the World Council of Churches in Evanston, Illinois, four years later.
On December 15, 1950, Dr. Lemmon was named "Citizen of the Year" by the Columbia Cosmoplitan International Club. The Service medal and plaque honored him "For outstanding, unselfish service, with steadfast purpose directed to the welfare of his city, his church, his fraternal order and his fellow citizens. For his friendly, thoughtful consideration of others and his wonderful faculty of always having time for his friends and associates. A Great American Citizen.
Dr. Lemmon was a 32nd degree Mason, a member of the Kiwanis Club for many years, serving a term as president. He served on the Library Board for twenty years, on the Community Chest and the United Fund in various capacities. In constant demand as a speaker for various community groups, Dr. Lemmon was a leader in many movements for community improvements throughout the years. He served as secretary of the local commission on human rights and community relations. A member of the Social Service Board, he was a long-time trustee of Christian College, the Missouri School of Religion and the Lenoir Home.
Dr. Lemmon received special honors, April 23, 1963, at the opening session of the Annual Assembly of Missouri Christian Churches, held at Culver-Stockton College, Canton. The assembly awarded him the honored minister's pin and plaque for 42 years of service to the churches of Missouri.
Perhaps the most lasting influence of the Columbia church during these three decades came through the young persons associated with it. Many received their early experience in church service and went on to make their mark in the brotherhood. Alice Sorrell (Buckner), already an ordained minister and missionary, directed the Christian Student Congregation, 1931-1937, and later became executive for institutional missions for the United Christian Missionary Society. Winifred Watson, CSC director, 1937-1940, went with her husband Joesph Smith as a missionary couple to China and suffered internment in a prison camp after Pearl Harbor. Josephine Gilstrap, student worker, 1939-1941, later married Barnett Blakemore, dean of the Disciples Divinity House and chairman of the Panel of Scholars elected to restudy the theology and practices of the Disciples. Jean Hamilton (Burgess), 1943 student worker, later pursued a career in teaching and writing. Among others were Parker Rossman, associate minister, 1944-1946, who moved to the international student work and a professorship in Yale Divinity School; his wife, Jean Fleming, later directed several university student congregations. Edward Coffman, Jr., associate minister from 1946 to 1958, served a long pastorate at the First Christian Church, Madisonville, Kentucky. Eldon Drennan, associate pastor, 1959-1963, became a dean at Christian College.
These young people moved on to greater service to the Disciple brotherhood away from the Columbia community. Dr. Lemmon, their pastor, spent the greater part of his long ministerial career in the First Christian Church, Columbia. The congregation honored him and his devoted wife, a long-time Sunday School teacher, by naming the education wing of the church the Lemmon Building.”
Inspired, by the preservation of a historic church education building, our group, CoMo Preservation, hopes to help homeowners, landlords, and institutions prevent the destruction of historic architecture. Original period styles might be replicated, but will forever lack the social history of authentic structures. The preservation of historic buildings is necessary for Columbia’s residents, students, and visitors to achieve a sense of place and, it follows, for our city’s continued economic success. If you want to join us in our mission sign up for our mailing list to receive news and updates.
Sources:
Missourian staff (February 5, 1929). Christian Church Opens Bids Today. Columbia, Missouri: Columbia Missourian. Archived at Missouri Digital Heritage. Accessed February 5, 1929.
Dains, Mary K.; Stepenoff, Bonnie (June 13, 1991). National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: First Christian Church. Columbia, Missouri. Accessed February 5, 2023.
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