Our Heritage:

Community Congregational Church is a church of threes – a triune God, and a triune church.

The church’s roots date back to the earliest days of Johnson County, Indiana. Back in 1836, early settlers in the Hurricane Community founded churches affiliated with the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian denominations. Each group built a place of worship, the one built by the Methodist and Baptists (along with the United Brethren) also serving as a schoolhouse.

Eventually the Methodist Protestant Church decided to build its own place of worship, so in 1844 they built a frame church known as the Pleasant Hill Methodist Protestant Church. The congregation built a new brick building on the same spot in 1879. That building, which was built for $6,000 and dedicated on October 10, 1880, would serve as the sanctuary for what would become Community Congregational Church until 1996.

The Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches continued as separate entities until 1917, when a casual discussion between James Covert and Harry Magill led to merger talks between the three groups. Later that year 180 charter members joined together to form the Community Congregational Church. The Methodist site was chosen because it was the largest facility. The spirit of love was evident in the union because each church was willing to sacrifice their former denomination affiliation in order to serve the religious interest of the community under the polity of the Congregational denomination.

Growth has been a constant for the church. A parsonage was built in 1918, the church’s first full year together. Because it was World War I and most of the men of the community were in the Army, the women of the church played a major role in the construction. The church added an addition for Sunday school rooms in 1947, and then added on again and completely renovated the parsonage beginning in 1986.

While church attendance and other parts of the church continue to grow, the sanctuary did not. In 1995, the congregation voted to address that issue by expanding the sanctuary. Plans were drawn up with great care to preserve as much of the existing architecture as possible. Work began in the spring of 1996 and was completed in time for Christmas that same year. With the change of pastors and a pastor’s need to own their home, the parsonage was sold and relocated north on Hurricane Road where it is a private residence.