First United Methodist Church in the 21st
Century
by Theodore Agnew
The members of First United Methodist Church, Stillwater, Oklahoma, are poised to do great deeds as they move further in the 21st century. They have committed themselves by a campaign, “Building Together, In Faith,” to raise funds that will help them expand their Christian mission.
Members of FUMC enthusiastically accept United Methodism’s mission state (Book of Discipline 200, Paragraph 120): “The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Local churches provide the most significant arena through which disciple-making occurs.” This mission begins in Stillwater, with persons who attend our two Sunday worship services. We worship God—we pray, we sing, we hear God’s word preached. We study the Bible, interpreting through tradition, reason, and experience. We receive the sacraments – baptism and holy communion. We care for each other, through all the years from birth to death. And we spread our mission beyond Stillwater – to persons at the OSU campus, elsewhere in Oklahoma, at places throughout our nation, to locations worldwide.
We center our activities in the building located at Seventh and Duck, Stillwater. This structure was built more than eighty years ago – dark red brick exterior, tile roof, stained-glass windows, a white-walled sanctuary shaped like a cross, raised pulpit, choir loft with organ, and rows of wooden pews. These stained-glass windows, plus more in the narthex (entryway) and the magnificent rose window above the balcony, enabled church members to give special gifts in memory of person they loved. Other spaces in the building were for Sunday School classes while still others (yes, there had to be a kitchen and dining room!) enabled the women’s organization (“Ladies Aid”) to serve dinners to church members and Stillwater civic groups – another money-raising ministry. One proposed feature, in doubt because of cost, was the tower. It was saved when Treasurer George Dollinger insisted: “We need that tower; we’ve got to be seen from the campus!” And shortly Wesley Foundation and Wesley Players (a drama group led by Gladys Burris) were using spaces at Seventh and Duck. Rounding out the church’s property was a frame parsonage on the large lot immediately north of the sanctuary.
The congregation that met in this brick structure was First Methodist Episcopal Church. It was one of two Methodist congregations in Stillwater. The other, originally First Methodist Episcopal Church, South (denominational names reflected 19th century divisions), eventually took the name “Trinity." Both congregations had started in 1889-1890, when Stillwater was fresh from “the Run.” Both built their edifices early and well, survived “hard times,” and became stable and growing churches, leaders in the community. By the 19-teens both churches needed to build fresh. Trinity (MECS) led the way in 1917, at their old location at Sixth and Husband. First ME (nicknamed by some the “North” church) shortly took its turn, building on the now familiar lots at Seventh and Duck.
The economic prosperity of the 1920s brought solid growth to Stillwater’s churches and to the parent denominations as well. Protestant churches in North American and in Europe felt moved by the spirit of ecumenism (the Greek word means “the whole inhabited earth”) to proceed toward greater Christian unity. Three Methodist denominations in the USA united in 1939, calling their new structure simply “The Methodist Church.” The two Stillwater congregations followed suit within a month, being the new denomination’s first local churches to unite, as “First Methodist Church”. Thus, on June 4, 1939, members of Trinity ceremonially walked three long blocks to their new home – yes, at Seventh and Duck. Both pastors would serve the new congregation; the choirs would merge; and lay leadership would be shared, including the women’s organizations. Eight hundred persons attended the morning and evening worship services that Sunday, and parked automobiles stretched “around the entire block,” the local paper reported.
“First Methodist”, having overcome lingering effects of the Great Depression of the 1930s, survived dislocations of the Second World War, only to be met by the expanding population of “OAMC” and the resulting boom of the 1950s and 1960s. All these made new challenges for local churches. First Methodist built two additions in the 1950s – a suite of offices, more bathrooms, a chapel, classrooms, a social hall, central air conditioning, and a large educational unit (which was built on the parsonage site; thus a detached pastor’s home came about). The growing Sunday School and youth programs led to purchase of a succession of frame houses on Duck Street and later on Seventh Avenue, as well as the Latter Day Saints’ former edifice at Duck and Sixth. Programs thus found new locations, and off-street parking lots emerged. The Wesley Foundation moved to a building at University and Washington, close to “OSU” (new designation in 1957), while many university students still came to Seventh and Duck to worship and to have Sunday School. And in 1952 First Methodist introduced a new service for the city of Stillwater – a kindergarten. Later known as the church’s Early Childhood Education program, this ministry, self-supporting financially, had its own board of directors and employed professionally trained staff persons.
“First Methodist” became “First United Methodist” in 1968, the result of a denominational union of the “The Evangelical United Brethren Church” with “The Methodist Church.” The programs and the missions of First UMC became more diverse and more plentiful. In order to accommodate these, a major renovation of FUMC took place in the early 1970s. New pews, floor covering, and sanctuary seat cushions added to comfort. A new organ enabled a wider range of music choices. Kitchen and social hall were improved. Pale interior décor in the sanctuary gave way to darker wood tones. A divided chancel separated pulpit from lectern. The narthex became a better passageway for entering the sanctuary and for moving to other areas of the church. Above all, the newly created Tower Room proved its value by integrating into the building a space previously both remote and pigeon-infested, while enabling new multi-purpose uses. Meanwhile we note that several groups, not affiliated with FUMC and not necessarily containing any FUMC members, find our facilities suitable to their needs; examples include the Mineral and Gem Society, Alcoholics Anonymous, and Alzheimer’s Association.
American society in the 1970s and 1980s brought about new concepts, apparently contradictory, that led churches to become at the same time both more professional-minded and more lay-centered. The former trend led to a growing staff in the local church. The pastor’s assistant, like the senior pastor appointed by the bishop, in the 1940’s served mainly the Wesley Foundation; later this person took on whatever duties the senior pastor chose to assign, still later becoming “associate pastor.” Other ordained assistants might perform short-term specialized duties, with education, hospital calling, or ministry with home-bound as emphases. The local church professional and lay staff expanded. By the 1990s its members included a full-time pastor, a full-time associate, a professionally trained minister of music, a minister with youth, and a business manager; as well as part-time secretaries, custodians, and nursery attendants. As a result, the Pastor-Parish Relations Committee, an important unit in the lay structure of the local church, became the Staff-Parish Relations Committee.
The other trend, the tendency to center on the laity, emerged in the 1970s. A half century earlier, a vocational goal for talented young persons, “full-time Christian service,” had meant the ordained ministry or life in foreign missions. Now “the ministry of all Christians” came into vogue as a concept, and it applied to persons of all ages. As expressed in the Book of Discipline 200 (Paragraph 125): “All Christians are called through their baptism to this ministry of servanthood in the world to the glory of God and for human fulfillment.” Lay persons thus can – and do—share in this ministry, in one or more of the continually emerging areas of work. A lay person may still teach Sunday School or sing in the choir, but he or she may now also share in Volunteers in Mission, ring bells, lead “Continuing Education,” or take part in intensive Bible study (“Disciple” and “Believer”). And lay persons may continue to support FUMC in its sponsorship of Boy Scout Troup 18 – a relationship dating from the 1920s.
Thus First United Methodist Church, through its ordained and professional staff persons, and also through its talented and devoted lay members, performs a host of ministries. It claims nearly 1400 local church members; 540 persons on average attend its worship services each Sunday. Its organized units of United Methodist Women, United Methodist Men, and United Methodist Youth, carry out linkages with denominational agencies in Oklahoma and the nation – and the world. In the most recent year for which these statistics are readily available (Oklahoma Annual Conference Journal, 2002, pages 366-371), First United Methodist Church, Stillwater, reported:
- Property evaluation $4,165,400
- Parsonages and furniture $387,100
- Other assets $2,831,732
- Indebtedness $31,144
- Paid for all causes $727,288
On Sunday, September 28, 2003, First United Methodist Church broke ground for our next phase of development – the new Family Life Center and a new parking lot. Led by Pastor Stan Warfield, we offer this brief historical sketch, in review of the past and evaluation of the present – and in hope for the future. To God be the glory!
Theodore Agnew
October 1, 2003