The first meeting place for St. John's Methodist Church was in an upper room of Smith's Casino at Ocean Drive, south of First Street

The children who attended the Sunday School were delighted. 
Few parents would give them the money to go to Smith's Casino to swim and learn to dive in the pool, since the ocean was free.   Now, on Sunday mornings from 9:00 to 10:39 they could go in the pool free.

T.E. James, mayor of Miami Beach , taught the first adult Sunday School class.

During 1924 the Sunday School was moved from Smith's Casino to the second floor of the recently completed
Fitch Building on Fifth Street between Alton Road and Lenox Avenue.
The Miami Beach Post Office had the first floor.

Sunday was the day for Miami people to go to the beach. So they came, either by one of the two boats, the 'Lady Lou' or the 'Dixie Belle', or by automobile over Collins' wooden bridge , the longest in the world of its day.

In May 1923, the Miami District Board of Church Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, arranged for purchase of property at Sixth Street and Jefferson Avenue from the Miami Ocean View Company, for the new church building.

On December 6, 1923, Miami Beach was declared to be a "station" of the Methodist Church and with partial support from the Mission Board.
Henry Blackburn became its first full-time pastor.

Using drawings and plans by architect Wil­liam F. Brown , the Trustees signed on March 23, 1925, a contract with George W. Dickens Co. to construct the first unit of a new church at Sixth Street and Jefferson Avenue, intended only to serve as a Sunday School building, social hall and pastor's apartment, though the second floor would serve admirably for worship at this time.

A feature of the new building was a lighted, revolving cross 82 feet above the street on a metal frame atop the entrance tower. It could be seen four miles at sea. It was one of 50 such crosses throughout the country.

On Sep­tember 17, 1926, late in the evening, the worst hurricane of the century hit the Greater Miami area, and extended into the next day. The U.S. Government barometer registered 27.75 during the hurricane, the lowest ever recorded. Winds blew at the rate of 120 miles per hour. The Red Cross estimated the number of deaths in Dade County at 372, with injured at 6,381, and families affected by the storm at 17,884.
The church roof was blown off, the revolv­ing cross was wrecked, and the whole building greatly damaged, but no one was injured.
The cross was not replaced.

In the 1940's the church selected national­ly known A. Hensel Fink of Philadelphia (the re­view architect for the Board of Missions de­partment of church building) to design a new church. Miami Beach architect Robert M. Little was chosen as associate in charge of materials and supervision.

The land for the church at
4760 Pinetree was donated by
S. S. Kresge (the millionaire who started the Kresge dime store chain, which is now morphed into K-Mart).
When the owner of the house north of the property (4764 Pinetree) complained about having a church next door, Mr. Kresge bought the house and gave it to the church as a parsonage.

This land was formerly owned by John Collins , a horticulturalist and a Quaker who started a plantation of mangoes and avocados, with a row of Australian Pines to protect his orchards from the wind.  The area had a packing plant, workers quarters, an irrigation pond, and a dock at 41st and Lake Pancoast (surprise lake?).

Pinetree drive was originally called Plantation Road .  Frank and Ezra Osborn, also Quakers, later moved to the area and started a commercial coconut plantation in the area.

The ground breaking in February, 1949, was a community event, attended by other clergy, the mayor, supervising architect, district superintendent,
Mr. and Mrs. Kresge, trustees, building committee, friends and relatives.
The Children's Choir sang. Many lined up to turn a shovelful of the good earth.
Mr. Kresge was quite religious.

As the construction proceeded all summer, church folk had time to remember some of their unique pleasures as a "parsonage con­gregation": refreshments on the lakeside porch; Christmas parties when Santa Claus came across Surprise Lake in his decorated yacht, while holiday music floated across the water; and inspiring musical programs such as the one provided by Billy Sunday's famous trombonist,
Homer Rodeheaver, and a colorful lake shore holiday pageant produced
by Fithian Studios.

The first service of worship was held in the new Sanctuary on
November 27,1949, the 25th Anniversary of the Founding of the Church.
The occasion culmi­nated in laying of the Cornerstone to the north of the beautiful front doors, as seen from the street.