History of Woodward Ave Presbyterian Church

In 1907 the need for a church in the northern reaches of the growing city was needed, however a permanent church wouldn’t be built until 1910. By the time the new church had opened in were it stands today the church had numbered 742 members. At the cost of $100,000 the new church featured a organ donated by the daughter of David Whitney and the rear featured a Sunday school wing, with classrooms and recreational facilities. For the time the church was built it was noted as a very unique design by the Detroit Free Press, by 1913 the church had grown to 1,325 members and 2,204 just 10 years later. Around this same time the church had an active athletic league, with bowling, tennis, basketball, baseball, and golf teams. Membership continued to rise, reaching 2,000 by 1931. The church would go on to become one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the city of Detroit. In 1929 major redecoration to its interior between June and September 1929. This work was deemed so impressive, that the interior of the church has not been redecorated since. In the 1940s most in attendance at the church were mostly upper middle class. Woodward Avenue Presbyterian began to see attendance drop in the 1950s as many members moved to the suburbs, by 1958 the church had dropped to 1,100, and by 1971 falling to 404 members. In 1981 the church was merged with Church of The Covenant, another struggling Presbyterian Church on the east side of the city. The combined congregation moved to Woodward, and the pastor of Covenant, Gary M. Douglas, took over leadership of the church. Even this effort did little to raise the fortunes of the church, which continued to lose members after the merger. 1993 was the last year of Woodward Avenue Presbyterian, as Reverend Douglas sought and obtained permission to withdraw from the Detroit Presbytery. Over time his teachings and style of worship had shifted closer to that of Baptist, and after negotiating a deal that saw him take over the building and property, he renamed it Abyssinia Interdenominational Church. The church continued on but never attracted enough members to offset the cost of operating and maintaining such a large, old church building. In 2005 the church closed alongside the death of the pastor Gary M. Douglas. Many efforts to save or renovate the church have been started since closing however the cost of restoring the building proved to be too high for most of the attempts.