New Covenant United Methodist Church

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The church on Wildwood Parkway, now used as the New Covenant United Methodist Church, was originally built for the Central Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1930.

The church's original congregation was organized around 1866 and, in 1876, erected a sanctuary on Edmondson Avenue near Harlem Park. In 1926, the church purchased a property on the street then known as Wildwood Driveway and, in November 1929, sold the building on Edmondson Avenue and announced plans to begin building a three-story Sunday school designed by architect Guy E. Gaston.

Construction on a new church began in May 1930 with a cornerstone laying ceremony attended by three hundred people. The building was estimated to cost $65,000. Around 1954, the congregation merged with the Summerfield Methodist Church after the Rehoboth Church of God in Christ Jesus Apostolic purchased the latter congregation’s building on Poplar Grove Street.

Through the years, the church offered a variety of programs and religious services. In February 1965, the church (then known as the Central-Summerfield Methodist Church) offered an “old-fashioned minstrel show” in their fellowship hall. While minstelry had a long history as popular entertainment for white Baltimoreans, the show was a particularly striking choice given the neighborhood's ongoing transition of largely segregated white to segregated black between 1960 and 1970.

Eventually, the church became the Wildwood Parkway United Methodist Church and operates today as the New Covenant United Methodist Church.