Plymouth Congregational Church / Plymouth Congregational Church

Congregational churches originated with the Puritan and Separatist churches of New England. Soon after “Michigan” (present-day Lansing) was chosen as the site of the state capital in 1847, the Reverend S. S. Brown, a congregationalist with the Connecticut Home Missionary Society, came to Lansing and, together with seven members, formed a Congregational society. Local Congregationalists and Presbyterians cooperated under the national Plan of Union of 1801, which encouraged the two denominations to worship together. In 1864 Lansing Congregationalists established Plymouth Church, named for its New England origins. Plymouth Church founded two daughter churches, Pilgrim Congregational in 1892 and Mayflower Congregational in 1903. When Lansing Congregationalists established the Plymouth Church in 1864, services were held in the senate chambers of Michigan’s first capitol building in Lansing. In 1865 a chapel was erected at the corner of Washtenaw Street and Capitol Avenue. That building was later moved to a site at the corner of Allegan and Townsend Streets purchased for the church by Cortland Stebbins. In 1877 a monumental Gothic Revival church was dedicated on that site. The Detroit News reported that capitol architect Elijah Myers considered it “one of the finest churches in the United States.” The structure, with its 160-foot steeple, tragically burned on February 25, 1971. Rooms at the neighboring YWCA served as a temporary sanctuary. The present church was dedicated on October 12, 1975.