We're glad that you found our Website and hope that you stop by often for updates.
But more important, we hope that you join us in person!
We welcome you to share with us the love of Jesus Christ through our Sunday morning worship services, church school classes - and through the many activities that keep us busy each week.
There are opportunities for everyone, regardless of your age, your interests or your abilities. (Our facility is handicap accessible.) So we invite you to browse through this site, then join us as we fellowship together. You'll be glad you did!
We're located on the southeast corner of SR 331 (Bremen Highway) and Jackson Road, just south of the US 20 Bypass and the Meijer store.
Our "Purpose" lays a heavy burden on us - a burden that is made lighter when we work together to make Coalbush Church a body of Christ's servants who have a vision and are willing to do everything possible to make that vision a reality.
Our goal is to uplift and sustain a generation that is fully committed to Jesus Christ. As singles, married couples, moms, dads, children, youth, grandmas and grandpas - and anyone in between - we reach out to touch, to teach and to give.
Vision
Our Vision for Children- To introduce children to the love of God in Jesus Christ at the earliest possible age.
- To help children know and appreciate the presence of God in their lives.
- To offer teens a place to belong
- To foster life-changing relationships with Christ.
- To equip teens to live with faith and integrity at all times. We have a vibrant group of young people at Coalbush Church. They meet together as Christian teens who are faced with pressures and temptations of the modern world. they make use of their new indoor space - and our ample outside facilities - for their learning and recreation times.
- To empower Senior Adults with a renewed heart for ministries.
- To help Senior Adults utilize their continuing potential for service and care for others.
Our Vision for Families
- To help Young Adults become established in their faith and lives.
- To help Young Adults solidify the connection between faith, work, and life.
- To help Families become established in their faith and life.
- To equip parents to be able to raise children of integrity and selflessness in a Christian home.
- To help them deal with life issues through the prism of their faith.
- To provide opportunities to be in ministry in the Coalbush Church, throughout our community, and beyond. We are a community of diversity - a community that seeks opportunities to strengthen its relationship with spouses, children, parents and friends through classes, discussion, meals and recreation within a Christian context.
Our Vision for Our Facilities
- To provide opportunities for people to share the love of God with others.
- To provide forums for people to interact and develop relationships with others.
- To have a first class facility that enhances and compliments our outreach and ministry
- To have a first class facility that meets the spiritual and physical needs of those who utilize it.
Our active membership is 275 persons, with several more who are attending regularly. Our pastor, the Rev. Jim Davidson, has been in our pulpit since March of 1997, making him the second longest tenured pastor in the history of our church. The church employs an Office Manager, Organist, Director of Music, Pianist, Director of Handbell Choirs, Preschool Director and teachers, Custodians, and a Groundskeeper. Our church members are all considered "ministers" of the church as they live their lives for Christ.
The Administrative Council oversees the activities of the various church committees. These include the Laity Council (coordinating leadership for the activities of the church), Finance, Outreach (Missions and Evangelism), Youth Fellowship, Education, and Membership Care (Visitation, Worship and Newcomers). Our church Trustees oversee the care of our facility and the Staff/Parish Relations Committee coordinates the relationship between the church and its hired employees. A multitude of small committees organize numerous events and activities for the congregation and our community.
The Coalbush Church has four adult Sunday School Classes, spanning all ages, interests, and styles of teaching. Our children's Sunday School Classes are divided by age group: Preschool, K to 6th grade, and Jr/Sr High.
The Coalbush Christian Preschool is a vibrant Christ-centered kindergarten preparation school. Classes meet in the mornings with the 3 and 4 year olds meeting next year on Monday, Wednesday & Friday and the Pre-K meeting Monday thru Friday. With a proven curriculum that entertains, teaches, and preaches God's role in the world and in the lives of the children, our graduates get great reviews on their academic and social preparedness from our local Kindergarten teachers.
The Preschool is considered an outreach mission of the church.
Coalbush Church has many special activities and events during the year. We have two fish fries, a salad luncheon, a rummage sale, a cookie walk, and a trivia night each year. We have special services at Christmas and Easter, and an autumn celebration in October. Men's basketball plays on Mondays & Thursday nights at 7:30. The United Methodist Women have regular meetings and craft nights. Local boy scout and girl scout troops meet at our church in the evening as well as a TOPS group Tuesday mornings. A new ZUMBA fitness class meets 4 different times each week.
Our largest outreach activity of the year is our food booth at the St. Joseph County 4-H fair. This effort requires the work of a majority of our congregation and serves hundreds of meals to hungry fairgoers during the usually sweltering hot week of 4-H activities. Located between the livestock show arena and the Dairy Bar we are a well known fixture of the fair, serving exhibitors, families, fairgoers, and fair workers with love and respect uncommon on the fair circuit.
The United Methodist Youth Fellowship (YF) meets on Sunday nights for a meal, devotions, games, and fellowship. On alternating summers they go to Senior High Camp or a mission trip. In the summer of 2009 they are planning a mission trip to Louisiana to help with Hurricane Recovery, having previously visited Oklahoma, West Virginia, South Dakota, and South Carolina.
The Coalbush Church has existed at the corner of Bremen Highway and Jackson road for decades. The present church structure was erected in 1959. In the spring of 2005 ground was broken for the addition that holds our Family Life Center which includes classrooms, offices, the Preschool, storage, a vaulted foyer, elevator, and the multi-purpose room with full court basketball and volleyball. Completed in March 2006, the Family Life Center has dramatically expanded our possibilities for outreach and ministry.
Four Churches. One Site. One God.
Beginning in 1856 when the 36-member German evangelical church became known as the Kohl Busch Kirche, there has been a worshiping congregation at the corner of Jackson Road and Bremen Highway. A structure that measured just 32' x 36', the church was a simple building of poplar siding and oak shingles.
when a storm destroyed the first church in 1886, members used the same foundation and framework and completed the "new" church with a new roof and siding. Changes were also made to the entrance and windows, and this church was dedicated in 1887.
In 1905, a brick church was built. The 1887 church was moved to the northwest corner of Jackson Road ns Bremen Highway. The new church was 56' x 41' and had a bell tower containing a 1,200-pound bell. Total cost: $6000. There were 50 members of the Coalbush Evangelical church at the time it was dedicated. In 1946, with the merger of the Evangelical and United Brethren churches, Coalbush became known as Coalbush Evangelical United Brethren Church.
In 1950, a basement for a new church was begun south of the brick church, with a tunnel connecting the two structures. The basement phase cost $50,000. The upper portion of the limestone church was begun in June 1958 and completed in August 1959 at a cost of about $225,000. In 1968, the Methodist church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren church and our church is now known as Coalbush United Methodist Church.
The first phase of a two story expansion of the current building was dedicated on February 26, 2006. The addition houses offices, classrooms and a large multi-purpose room. An elevator allows access to all three floors of the original building and the two floors that have been added.
Through four buildings on one corner, there has always been one God. And as we look ahead to phase two of our building expansion, we look back on our forefathers (and mothers) who stepped out in faith and say "thank you" for their part in expanding God's kingdom.
*Coming in 2009 a complete history of Coalbush and a delightful photo montage of where we've been and who we are, click here to download a copy of Coalbush Church 1848-1998, Commemorating 150 years.
Links: UMC.org NICUMC.org
