Shelton Park Church of God

Shelton Park Church of God was born in 1943 as the Summit Street Church of God in Toledo. It later moved to George St. and became the George Street Church of God. It was there that this photo was taken in the early 1950s.

The following is from an article published by Rebecca Buckingham in the Bedford Now Friday April 21,2006

Shelton Park Church of God is Bedford's little white church on the corner. It's also the little church that could. On Sunday, the 200-member congregation will celebrate the groundbreaking for a new church building at 8702 Douglas Rd., just north of Consear Rd. and the new Greystone Manor development, said the Rev. Scott Isham, the church's pastor. The church is really excited. "It's good to see something good for them. It's been our heart's desire," he said. It’s also been a long time coming.

The church purchased the property 2 years ago, he said. When the proposed 12,000-square-foot building is complete, it will have a sanctuary that could seat between 300 and 400 people. The new handicapped-accessible church will have larger Sunday School rooms and more of them and a multipurpose room that can serve as a fellowship hall and a gymnasium.

 There also will be a larger foyer with an information center and pastor's offices, Pastor Isham said. The church also hopes to add a library sometime in the future. The new facility also is meant to serve the community, too, Pastor Isham said. It's hoped that part of the 13-acre  grounds can be used to develop a park that would be open for use by the public.

We have a lot of requests now as Bedford has grown for people needing facilities. We've just not had the facilities for it. We look forward to having something for the church and the community, he said. .

The congregation itself has come a long way. It formed as the Summit Street Church of, God, part of the denomination's Mountain Assembly, in Toledo in 1943. It moved to George St. in Toledo and became the George Street Church of God. Then the church adopted the Shelton Park moniker when it purchased the current building from the Shelton Park Baptist Church in the early 1960s.

Although the new building probably seemed spacious when the congregation moved in, the township's growth eventually cramped the church's space. The parking lot originally was in front of the building, but when the road was widened, the parking had to be moved behind the church wiping out the parsonage lawn.

They have been desiring to build for a long time," said Pastor Isham, who has been with the church for seven years. They became landlocked. .. . This was just a gravel road when they bought the church. They hope to sell the property to help fund the new construction, which is estimated will cost between $600,000 and $700,000, Pastor Isham said.

The property itself and the house that sits on it (the parsonage), cost $230,000. All of the expenses so far have been covered by donations from the congregation, Pastor Isham said. "The giving of people and faith," he said. There also are architectural engineers and others in the dedicated congregation that have- helped ease the financial strain. We’re doing a lot of work ourselves. We may have to phase some of it (in), depending on the budget, he said.

While the groundbreaking is this weekend, actual construction won't start right away The church is waiting for water and sewage lines to be brought in by the Greystone Manor project and for final approval from the township and county planning commissions, Pastor Isham said.

Still, they hope to start construction this year and have the, building finished sometime in  2007.When that happens, all the effort will have paid off. "The congregation has worked hard, and God opened the doors for them," Pastor Isham said.

Additional article published by the Bedford Now on June 28,2007 interviewing our charter member Ruby Gibson