In the 1950’s and ’60’s the Southern Province looked afield to Florida and Georgia, Raleigh and Charlotte for church extension. But in the late 1970’s the Province found the perfect spot for a new church right in its own backyard.
To the west of Winston-Salem the community of Lewisville was rapidly growing. To better serve the area the Province in August 1979 purchased an 8.93-acre parcel of land on Concord Church Road. It was the first church extension in Forsyth County in almost 30 years.
Events transpired as rapidly for this new endeavor as they did for Konnoak Hills and Messiah in 1951. A first meeting of interested people was held in the Lewisville Civic Center on January 27, 1980. William H. McElveen was commissioned as organizing pastor at the first service on April 13. On May 25 the congregation received provisional church status. It had 66 members, one-third of them from non-Moravian backgrounds. The previous Sunday they had chosen a name: Unity Moravian Church. Unity held its charter Sunday, its anniversary date, on November 16.
The church building was even quicker. Groundbreaking was on November 9, 1980. The first service in it was on April 12, 1981, and dedication followed on June 7.
All that — from nothing to a fully operating church — in less than two years.
Less than a year later Unity was having a problem, the kind of problem a church loves to have. Its burgeoning membership — by July 1983 Unity had more than 200 members — was outgrowing the church building. For stopgap relief, Unity installed a mobile building for classrooms, but more effective measures had to wait until debts on the first building were paid.
Finally the campaign began in 1990, Unity’s 10th anniversary year. Groundbreaking was on March 22, 1992, and the first service in the new building on October 25 practically filled the sanctuary, which can seat 350. Formal dedication took place on February 14, 1993.
By 2000 Unity’s membership had grown to 464. Can anyone doubt that another building campaign will soon be in Unity’s future?