Why do we love our church?

First, we love our church because it is ours. Secondly, we love our church because it has been a part of our community for 98 years and is interwoven in our heritage and our hearts and lives.

It is an integral part of who we are at Brownsboro First United Methodist Church.

Summer 1911 marked the first step toward the organization of a Methodist church in Brownsboro. Rev. G.M. Fletcher, pastor of the Murchison M.E.S., came to Brownsboro to make arrangements to host a weeklong or 10-day revival.

This meeting began the first Sunday of September 1911. At the close of the meeting, Rev. Fletcher offered to organize a Methodist church in Brownsboro with services to be on the fourth Sunday of each month if he could get 15 or 20 members.

The meetings would be in the old school house, which was a two-story wooden building with the upper floor housing the W.O.W. Hall and the lower, the school.

All denominations, Baptist, Church of Christ and Methodist, used it as their meeting place.

Approximately 20 charter members helped with the establishment of the church. Until other churches were built, a Union Sunday School existed, usually in one quarter in the Spring and one in the Fall.

Baptist literature was used in the Spring; Methodist in the Fall.

About 1916, the Method- ists bought the old school and it served as the church until 1922 when a new building was built. This building was dedicated at the close of a revival meeting in August 1928. In 1918, the Methodist Sunday School was organized.

In the early stages, the Brownsboro church was in the Murchison Circuit, but in 1916 it joined the Chandler Circuit and full Sunday services, morning and evening, were on each second Sunday.

In 1918, the church switched to the Edom and Ben Wheeler Circuit, coming back to the Chandler Circuit in 1923, having half-time services on first and third Sundays.

And in 1942, a full-time program of services began for the church. The first full-time pastor, Mouzon Fletcher, was appointed in 1942, his first sermon being Aug. 23, 1942.

This was 31 years after his father, G.M. Fletcher, offered to organize a Methodist church in Brownsboro.

The white wooden church dedicated in 1928 was torn down in August and September 1964.

The congregation met in the school buildings until March 1965 when they moved into the present building.

The debt for this building was retired in October 1973. A fellowship hall was constructed in 1984 and a new parsonage was built in 1998.

Everyone is invited to attend the church Sunday for our 98th-year celebration at 11 a.m.

Rev. Richard Luna will be the speaker. Rev. Gary White is pastor. A covered dish lunch will be served after services.