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The Carters started with a Christmas musical entitled “The Star and the Stable,” and later wrote “Wheels” based on Ezekiel and performed by a cast of all ages. They also produced the youth musical “Sky Happy,” and the chancel choir opera, “Ruth.” Perhaps the most ambitious undertaking came in March 1984 when the Carters escorted the 35-member youth choir, named Jubulation!, and 19 other adults to New York for three concerts, one of them at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The group attended two Broadway shows, worshipped at Norman Vincent Peale’s church, and toured Lincoln Center and the Empire State Building. To raise the $12,000 for the trip, the youth had, among other projects, held an all-night cookie bake-a-thon, producing 2,000 dozen Christmas cookies.

Other ministries developed during this period were the Fellowship Friends, to help usher new ministries into the flow, and lay visitation teams called the Care-Takers to visit people who had just started attending the church or were recently inactive.

Floyd Powell made two return appearances in 1984 – one to preach on the occasion of his retirement from the ministry and the second to offer a prayer of dedication and consecration as the mortgage was burned. This took place, with much pomp and ceremony, at a two-hour church service September 16, 1984, with Dr. William E. Smith, Columbus South District superintendent, officiating. It was followed by a catered luncheon and an afternoon musical program and photo display. Those responsible for the church’s finances later regretted that the mortgage was burned with such a public display. Instead of easing the church’s financial burden, the effect was the reverse. The envisioned $40,000 annual “saving” was immediately gobbled up by expenditures, chiefly for long-delayed maintenance. To many church members the mortgage burning was a signal that they could coast on their financial commitment. They church once again fell short of meeting its fair share of connectional ministries and another period of debt was just around the corner.

On April 21, 1985, the church celebrated its 150th anniversary with Heritage Sunday, an 1835-style worship service. David Frazer preached, dressed in colonial garb, complete with powdered wig. Ushers carried long poles to prod anyone who might fall asleep during the sermon. One parishioner added a touch of realism by toting a long rifle into the sanctuary. The worship service was followed by a slide presentation, a picnic with a large birthday cake for the church, and a musical program. Colorful balloons again were released in celebration of the event.

In June 1985, Bishop Edsel Ammons sent Ralph E. Bauserman to Reynoldsburg to replace David Frazer as senior minister, precipitating a 10 year course of spiritual revival that led to the physical expansion of the 1990s. Working slowly, Bauserman initiated a variety of new programs to change the direction of the church. He sometimes encountered resistance, and was not too timid to tell people what they did not want to hear. The thrust of his ministry was to emphasize the Bible, especially in preaching, to stress the need for adult Sunday School participation, to create the feeling of a “church family” and to persuade members to share their faith authentically with the unchurched.

In a September 25, 1985, Messenger article entitled “The Bible and Our Future,” Bauserman wrote: “…I am certain of one thing: the church which makes the Bible a priority will be a church which is spiritually alive…. There is no stopping a church which is based solidly on the Scriptures.”

But Bauserman’s arrival brought a new set of problems. David Frazer had owned his own home and was paid a housing allowance. Because of the expanded ministerial staff, the church had to purchase a third parsonage for Ralph and Wilma Bauserman on Creekside Place in Cobblestone Run. This cost, plus $40,000 in roof repairs to Kirsch Hall and $55,000 for parking lot resurfacing and expansion, added up to almost $200,000 and necessitated a $120,000 loan.

To set the church on the right financial course, Bauserman abandoned the worn-out “Circuit Rider” program and postponed the traditional November stewardship campaign. He enlisted a representative of the national church office to help with an expanded campaign in January 1986, with the objective to increase the operating budget by 20 percent and to raise $200,000 in capital funds to pay off the loan. The campaign was called “Together in Christ” and 92 percent of the church membership received individual visits in their homes. But it was a tough sell. The capital commitment was met with $192,084 pledged over three years, but donations to the operating fund were a disappointing $343,655 -- $10,000 below the 1985 budget.

In 1986, Ralph Bauserman shook things up, with the approval of lay leaders, by moving the 9:30 a.m Sunday worship service up to 8:30 and creating a 9:45 a.m. Sunday School hour with no conflicting worship service. He said adults, as well as children, should be studying the Bible, and that two hours was not too long for anyone to be in church on Sunday. Children, he said, should be in church with their parents. The younger ones could then go to Children’s Church during the sermon.

“The time has come for all of us to get serious about the Bible,” said Bauserman. “I believe that this new approach to Sunday is an opportunity for our church to once again become an alive, exciting and growing church.”

To lead the way, Bauserman planned to teach a Sunday School class called “A Beginner’s Bible Study.” He recruited about two-dozen faithful church-goers and hoped that half of them would attend. Instead, more than 100 people jumped at the offering and the class had to meet in the sanctuary. Bauserman led an exploration of Luke that lasted more than a year and tehn went on to teach Acts, Galatians and other letters from Paul. He also started services on healing and wholeness, demystifying and encouraging the laying on of hands and anointing with oil.

The 1988 financial campaign was a breakthrough, as 694 families and individuals pledged $474,121 – an increase of almost $100,000 or 23 percent. It enabled the church to underwrite its first half-million-dollar budget. Home visits were made for the third year, and the campaign was based on the “need of the giver to give” rather than on a budget goal. A similar philosophy was used in 1989, when the Consecration Sunday – involving a worship service to pledge followed by a meal – was inaugurated and continued at least through 1997.

During the Bauserman era, the church began underwriting second-mile giving to overseas missions and sponsoring individual missionaries abroad. It also established a sister church relationship with a Methodist church in Bulgaria and began serving the hungry and homeless in Columbus. Youth workcamps thrived in southeastern Ohio, and two work crews were dispatched to Alaska and Mexico.

The United Methodist Men sent a crew to Parsons, West Virginia, to help with flood relief. The men also established a covenant for financial support and labor with Habitat for Humanity and helped build houses in Columbus. The United Methodist Women continued their successful fall bazaars and various work projects. At times, their financial support helped keep crucial church programs going when it seemed all other funds were exhausted.

Perhaps the most thrilling musical program, coordinated by choir directors John Mark Simpson and Janet Wise, was a Palm Sunday production of “I AM: A Resurrection Celebration” by all the church choirs in 1991.

That same year, at annual conference, Bishop Ammons presented Rev. Bauserman with the “Harry Denman Evangelism Award” for outstanding service in outreach and evangelism. On the weekend of Nov. 9-10, 1991, RUMC’s worship attendance exceeded 1,000 for the first time on a non-holiday.

In 1992, Reynoldsburg United Methodist Church became the first in the West Ohio Conference to establish “Vision 2000” – a program of planning for ministry into the next century developed by the national church’s Board of Discipleship. Joe Harding, or Richland, Washington, the program’s co-author, visited RUMC to speak in May 1992 and 22 key local church leaders set long range goals. Among them: average worship attendance of 1,459 by 2000 and Sunday School attendance of 649.