Shanghai Community Church
The Community Church has been on this spot on Hengshan Road since 1925, a gathering place for song and prayer for nearly a century. It’s been closed for most of the last three (Covid) years, but now, in the midst of renovation, a door was open, the workers were looking the other way, so in we went!
The Community Church, 1928 (Virtual Shanghai), and March 2023
The Community Church started out, in 1917, as the American Song Service, held at the Palace Hotel. By 1920, they had moved to a larger rented space on Rue Doumer (Donghu Lu), but that was quickly outgrown, and funds were raised to build a permanent non-denominational Protestant church, hence the name Community Church. A plot of land on Avenue Pétain (Hengshan Lu) was purchased in 1923 from the Shanghai American School (SAS) which had just opened their new campus across the street on what had been rural farmland, dotted with graveyard hillocks.
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