In February 1916, a Methodist congregation met on the campus of Southern Methodist University for the first time to worship together.[1] It was organized as a congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS). It was initially named University MECS, but by the fall of that year, the student congregation joined Methodists in the newly forming Town of Highland Park and the church was renamed Highland Park MECS. A year later, in 1917, a temporary church building called "The Little Brown Church" was erected.[1]
Highland Park UMC Sanctuary
The current sanctuary was designed by architect Mark Lemmon (1889–1975) and Roscoe DeWitt (1894-1975) and built in 1927.[1][2] The first service in the sanctuary was held on February 6, 1927, when Umphrey Lee served as the pastor.[1] The Great Depression came and it took 15 years to pay off the debt. When it was paid, the church building was dedicated in 1943.
Lee left Highland Park Methodist in 1936 and was followed by Dr. Marshall Steel, who served from 1936 to 1957. Following Steel, William Dickinson served from 1958 to 1972. He was followed by Leighton K. Farrell], the church's longest serving minister, who was appointed in 1972 and served as senior pastor until 1995.
In 1995, the Rev. Mark Craig became senior minister.[1] Since 2013, the Rev. Paul Rasmussen has served as the senior minister.[1]
In 2010, after much restoration, the former Munger Place United Methodist Church located in the Munger Place Historic District, became the Old East Dallas satellite campus of Highland Park United Methodist Church, operating as Munger Place Church. In 2024, Munger Place Church was spun off from HPUMC and now operates once again as an independent United Methodist Church.[1][3]
In 2017, HPUMC launched a new campus in North Dallas, called The Grove Church, located on the site of the former Schreiber Memorial United Methodist Church.[4]
In January 2021, HPUMC launched a new campus, Uptown Church, that met in the House of Blues in the Uptown neighborhood of Dallas.[5] It was one of the first churches within the United Methodist denomination that was planted and led by two female ministers.[6] After almost three years of faithful ministry, the leaders of HPUMC made the decision to close Uptown Church, with Uptown Church's last service being held on November 12, 2023.
As of 2023, HPUMC had 14,852 members and an average attendance of 4,341.[7]
Controversies
After the United Methodist Church voted at its General Conference in 2024 to remove the denomination's prohibitions on hosting same sex weddings, senior minister Paul Rasmussen announced that Highland Park UMC would continue to prohibit same-sex wedding ceremonies on its property, stating that "For 108 years, through 13 different senior ministers, Highland Park has always maintained the traditional definition and understanding of Christian marriage when it comes to weddings within our worship facilities", he said. "We are going to continue to uphold the traditional definition of marriage in our worship venues." Rasmussen went on to say that clergy could perform same-sex weddings at other venues in the community "based on their conscience".[8]
In 2024, John Fiedler, a pastor at Highland Park UMC, was charged with solicitation of prostitution in relation to a police inspection of a massage parlor in Carrollton, Texas, on October 2, 2024.[9] After learning of the pastor's pending criminal charge and quietly accepting Fiedler's resignation, the church removed from its website all references to Fiedler, who had served at the church since 2013, first as the preacher for the 11:00 a.m. traditional worship service, and later as executive minister.[10] The church did not inform the congregation of the pending criminal matter until after the charges were published by multiple news outlets in January 2025.[11]
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