Founded in 1956, Saint Lawrence served all the Catholics of Aventura and North Miami Beach, joining the other only area parish, Holy Family. The parish began with a small school that met in a store in North Miami Beach. Later, parishioners purchased a portable building placed on parish property; the building functioned as a school on weekdays and for Mass on weekends. By 1957, the parishioners had increased so much that Mass was moved to the North Miami Beach Junior High School auditorium.

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Two years later, the growing parish raised enough funds to build a church, school and convent. When the parish celebrated its thirteenth anniversary in 1969, they sold a parcel of land to a Jewish congregation who built the Temple Sinai of North Dade. Parishioners and their Jewish counterparts established a warm, friendly relationship, depending on each other to fulfill needs as they rose.

 

A 1986 church and parish hall renovation turned the altar to face the congregation and created a better separation between the church and parish hall than the curtain formerly used.