After fire, bell rings again at Monkton Methodist

Church rebuilt following lightning struck last summer

When a bolt of lightning struck Monkton United Methodist Church last summer, flames engulfed the roof. A neighbor who called 911 said it looked like an “explosion.” Thesteeple at the top of the 145-year-old church burned to the ground.

The exposed church bell was all that remained.

“The bell never fell out of the roof,” the church’s pastor, the Rev. Jack Bussard, said.

A crane lifted it out the following morning; aside from some soot, it was undamaged. The congregation lined up to take turns ringing it at a rededication service Sunday to celebrate the end of a reconstruction that cost more than $400,000. Insurance covered all but $8,000 of it, Bussard said. Thechurch intends to raise the rest of the money.

All the church’s bibles and hymnals were ruined in the fire or soaked by water from the firefighters’ hoses. Both of the pianos had to be repaired. Wendy McIver said she bailed water out of the historic oak pews, which were eventually refinished.

Bussard called the fire “devastating.” The church in the 16500 block of Garfield Ave. dates to 1870, and is a historic landmark, so the Baltimore County Planning Commission sent a preservationist to survey the damage and ensure repairs were made according to code. McIver, the secretary of the church’s trustee board, said nearly everything was able to be restored or replaced.

McIver also sings in the choir, and her biggest fear was how the damage might affect the church’s acoustics. She and fellow member Ted Pepin recalled a Russian a cappella group that toured cathedrals internationally gushing about their small, plain church on a hill.

“They didn’t come for the audience,” Pepin said with a laugh. “They said, ‘There’s nowhere we have sung where our voices sounded better to us.’ ”

Sunlight gleamed through the stained glass windows during Sunday’s service, painting the white walls with shades of pink and blue. The choir and congregation once again took advantage of the sonorous acoustics, singing hymns “Praise the Lord” and “We Are Called.”

“The first Sunday when we came back here, we sang our first anthem in the church and we were all just in tears,” McIver said.

Isaiah Baptist Church across the street had opened its doors for the Methodists to hold Sunday services while their church was being repaired. The Baptist choir joined in the rededication celebration Sunday and sang “Sanctuary” and “Great Things.”

Barbara Metzler, a retired teacher, said she and her husband had attended Monkton United Methodist Church for more than 40 years. Their children were baptized in the church and went there for daycare, she said.

When Metzler’s husband retired, the pair moved to Delaware, but they returned for Sunday’s service.

“They say you can’t come home again, but I feel like I have,” she said.

When she got her turn to ring the bell, Metzler peered up the long, white rope dangling from a small hole in the ceiling, the bell itself out of sight. She took it with both hands and yanked, sending a muted clanging down from the roof.

“I’ve been here all this time, and I never rang the bell,” she said.

Bussard, who has been the church’s pastor for about four years, said he was touched to see the pews full of people again.

“It’s awesome, unbelievable, absolutely super,” he said. “Good friends, good people.”