Cedarbrook Worship Sanctuary began in the spring of 2014, when Francis Morrison and a circle of fourteen friends started meeting in a borrowed storefront on Vernor Highway. They had no sound system, no website, and no plan beyond the simple conviction that worship in spirit and in truth — the kind Jesus described to the woman at the well — should be available to anyone in their neighborhood who wanted it.
By 2016 the group had outgrown the storefront and purchased a vacant 1920s brick chapel four blocks east, on Woodbridge Lane. Members spent eighteen months restoring the building themselves — sanding the original maple pews, re-plastering the vaulted ceiling, and planting a small courtyard garden where the parking lot meets the sidewalk. The chapel reopened in October 2017 with a quiet evening service and a potluck on the lawn.
We've grown, slowly, but the founding posture has stayed the same. Cedarbrook is intentionally small. We don't broadcast our services, we don't host conferences, and we don't measure success by attendance. We measure it by whether the widow on Junction Avenue has someone to call when her furnace goes out in February, and whether the teenager at the back of the sanctuary feels safe enough to ask hard questions.
Music style, dress code, denominational affiliation. You'll find people in suits and people in work boots at the same service. We sing old hymns and newer songs in the same hour. We've drawn members from Catholic, Baptist, Pentecostal, and unchurched backgrounds, and we like it that way.
Francis Morrison grew up four miles from the chapel, in the Springwells neighborhood. He worked twelve years as a high-school history teacher in Dearborn before completing his pastoral studies at a small seminary outside Cleveland. He and his wife, Adele, have three grown children and one very loud beagle named Wesley. Francis can be reached directly at client@worshipinspiritntruth.com or at the chapel office, (313) 554-5482.
Cedarbrook is governed by a five-member council of elders, elected by the congregation to staggered three-year terms. Day-to-day ministry is supported by eight deacons and roughly thirty volunteer servants who handle hospitality, children's programs, music, and community outreach. We are not affiliated with a national denomination; we are a self-governing local congregation.
We'd rather sit with hard questions than rush to neat answers.
Coffee is always on. Lunch is always shared. Visitors are not projects.
We stay put. We know our neighbors by name and street.
Worship is the center of our week, not an add-on to it.
