Westlake's Churches Welcome Visitors In Honor Of Bicentennial

Twelve of the city’s churches will and invite visitors to learn their histories from 2-5 p.m. Sunday. To celebrate Westlake’s bicentennial, local churches will be able to tour the houses of worship, hear each one’s founding story.

“This is a mixture of some simple hospitality and some historical connections,” said Bob Hertl, lay pastor at St. Ladislas Parish. “The idea is to have a community open house that will allow people to stick their noses into churches just to see that churches are still a vibrant, vital part of every community, just as they would have been in the founding days of the community.

Hertl and other ministers have put together a map of each participating church that will be available, along with information on each church’s roots in the city and refreshments. Dover Congregational Church, which is also celebrating its 200th anniversary this year, will have an ice cream social and music, while Prince of Peace Lutheran will have an open air concert to kick of their summer concert on the lawn series at the conclusion of the tour at 5 p.m.

“Everyone has a founding story,” Hertl said. “I would say that’s the niche. Most of us are not that historically significant, but some are, like Dover Congregational.”

But the tour is also aimed at bringing neighborhoods closer together. The organization phase has brought some local churches together to collaborate, Hertl said.

“Many times you can be in the same neighborhood as a church and you never go to it because it’s not your denominational configuration,” he said. “And so here’s this great big member of your neighborhood you don’t know and don’t’ really have any access to. So we decided to open the doors.”

Participating churches are:

1. St. Bernadette (Rom Cath)
2256 Clague Rd

2. Church of the Advent (Episcopal)
3760 Dover

3. Westlake United Methodist
27650 Center Ridge

4. Church of Jesus Christ/ Latter Day Saints (Mormon)
25000 Westwood

5. Church on the Rise
3550 Crocker Rd

6. CrossPointe (Free Methodist)
1800 Columbia Rd

7. Prince of Peace Lutheran
28455 Center Ridge

8. St Paul Lutheran
27993 Detroit Rd

9. Church of the Redeemer (UCC)
23500 Center Ridge

10. Dover Congregational (UCC)
2239 Dover Rd

11. Church of the Unity
23855 Detroit Rd

12. St. Ladislas (Catholic)
2345 Bassett Rd