The First Methodist Church of Binghampton held its first services in a storefront on Broad Avenue in 1907. The following year, the congregation purchased some property several blocks to the south and constructed its first church building, a small concrete chapel at the corner of Merton Street and Oxford Avenue. In the early 1930s, despite the Great Depression, the Everett family donated several adjacent lots to the congregation and the First Methodist Church of Binghampton began fundraising to construct a new, larger church building. The congregation changed its name to Everett Memorial United Methodist Church in honor of the Everetts' generous bequest and completed their new church in 1935. 

 

Binghampton continued to grow throughout the 1940s and 1950s and the church expanded to meet the community's needs. In 1957, the church and community gathered together to celebrate the opening of the church's new Sunday School annex - an addition that more than doubled the size of the building. The church became a very active center of praise, learning, and community.

 

However, as the City of Memphis sprawled to the east, many of the congregants at Everett Memorial left Binghampton for the newer suburbs. In the early 2000s, the leadership of the church made the courageous decision to give their church building new life by donating it to the Center for Transforming Communities, then known as CONECT, inc. On September 27, 2007, representatives of Everett Memorial United Methodist Church, CONECT, and the Binghampton neighborhood gathered at the corner of Merton Street and Oxford Avenue to rededicate the building as a site of hope, healing, and transformation for Binghampton and the entire Memphis region. As more and more partners joined the building, a new identity took hold, and we renamed the building The Commons on Merton.