photo by: Kim Callahan

St. Luke African Methodist Episcopal Church is pictured on Saturday, May 14, 2022.

UPDATE: View photos from the Sunday service here.

St. Luke African Methodist Episcopal Church will renew its proud motto of “the friendly little church on the corner” this weekend with its first full Sunday service in more than two years and a rededication marking extensive renovations to the East Lawrence landmark.

Church member Maryemma Graham said Sunday’s 10 a.m. service will be the first at the church on the southeast corner of Ninth and New York streets to welcome the full congregation and open to the public since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

Making the day more special will be the first sermon to the full congregation by the new pastor, the Rev. Brandee Mimitzraiem, and a rededication after the service from A.M.E. Bishop Clement W. Fugh, marking renovations to the church, which was built in 1910. Much of that work — including remodeling of the vestibule and the fellowship hall, rehabilitation of large stained-glass windows, tuck-pointing and structural repairs of the brick exterior and installation of a chairlift to the basement-level fellowship hall — was completed during the pandemic pause in onsite services, Graham said.

Tours of the church will be available after the rededication, she said. And with regular Sunday services returning, the congregation is eager to resume all its traditional activities, such as Sunday meals.

Although some congregation members had the opportunity to view the renovations during a hybrid Easter service that was offered virtually and in the building, Sunday’s service will be the first opportunity for the entire congregation to see all the changes, Graham said.

“Everybody is excited to get back to church,” she said. “This is an old congregation who wants to go to church. It’s a close-knit community with deep roots, especially in East Lawrence.”

The renovations were undertaken under the leadership of the Rev. Verdell Taylor, who retired last fall after 26 years as pastor of St. Luke. Taylor provided remarkable leadership to the church and Lawrence community as pastor, Graham said, and the congregation’s first female pastor, Mimitzraiem, carries on a tradition recalled by the experience of Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes.

Hughes attended St. Luke while living in Lawrence with his grandmother in the early 1900s, an association that was critical to the church’s placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

“He was impressed with the role of the strong women who attended the church,” said Graham, a University of Kansas English professor who heads the school’s Project on the History of Black Writing. “This church has a tradition of strong women, and women still play a major role in the church, and our new pastor is our first woman pastor.”

photo by: Kim Callahan

St. Luke African Methodist Episcopal Church is pictured on Saturday, May 14, 2022.

photo by: Kim Callahan

St. Luke African Methodist Episcopal Church is pictured on Saturday, May 14, 2022.