First United Methodist Church of Montgomery

The First United Methodist Church (FUMC) of Montgomery organized as a Methodist Society on September 15, 1829. Members gathered for worship in downtown Montgomery, Montgomery County, at the corner of Court Street and Church Street until the 1930s when the church moved two miles southeast to Montgomery’s Cloverdale neighborhood. The history of FUMC includes changes to and construction of several buildings, while the congregation’s commitment to serving the community and supporting missions has remained a core value over many decades.

Founding members of the church in 1829 were Thomas Hatchett, Rachel Hatchett, Eliza Westcott, Susannah Nichols, Susannah Murrell, Cecelia Williamson, Lavinia Brothers, Mary T. Clopton, Eliza P. Blue, and Mrs. S. Fields (wife of Zachariah Fields). The group was formed when James H. Mellard, serving as a circuit preacher in the area, invited members of the Mills and Westcott Meeting House, a small congregation some two miles outside of town, to unite with a group of Methodists in downtown Montgomery. The congregation first worshiped in the Union Church building on a lot on Court Street. Built in the 1820s, the Union Church was shared by Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists on a rotating basis. The Methodist Episcopal Church (later known as Court Street Church), having passed on an opportunity to take sole possession of the building, was assigned every fifth Sunday in the shared space. In 1830, the Baptists and the Presbyterians sold their interests for $50.00 each, and the Methodists took ownership of the building. The Methodists worshiped at the Court Street location for the next 100 years before moving to Cloverdale.

The congregation, then known as a Methodist Society, was served by traveling circuit preachers. Three months after organizing, Benjamin A. Houghton was appointed as preacher in charge, and it became known as the Montgomery Station. (In the Methodist Church, a “society” refers to a small local congregation, and a “station” is a congregation with an assigned minister.) The Montgomery Station was part of the Cahawba District, which encompassed north and central Alabama, within the larger regional Mississippi Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1832, when the formation of the Alabama Conference led to the reorganization of the area, the church became part of the Chattahoochee District. Today, FUMC Montgomery is part of the West Central District of the Alabama-West Florida Conference.   

Old Ship A.M.E. Church

From 1829 to 1931, several buildings were used successively at the lot on Court Street. The original Union Church was relocated to serve as a parsonage and in 1835 a larger wooden building took its place. In 1852, the congregation, now part of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, funded construction of a new brick building. The 1835 building was given to a group of Black members comprised of enslaved and free individuals who rolled the structure on logs to Holcombe Street. It is now Old Ship A.M.E. Zion Church, the oldest Black church in the city of Montgomery. The structure has been remodeled, but the building’s original rear gable is still visible. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. The new brick building for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South was designed by Charles C. Ordeman and was dedicated March 2, 1856. It was estimated at the time to seat between 1,200 to 2,000 people. The building was renovated in the 1870s, including removal of the Greek columns and the addition of a steeple.   

First United Methodist Church, 1850s

On April 26, 1931, the final service was held at Court Street Church. Following three years of debate within the congregation, the church sold its property to the U.S. government; the building was demolished several months later. The congregation began to meet on the campus of the Woman’s College of Alabama (present-day Huntingdon College) while they decided on a building site. Architect George Awsumb had been selected to design an education building and a sanctuary for the congregation. He and the church’s building committee selected the current Cloverdale property.

In 1932, the church was renamed First Methodist Church. By then, the congregation numbered approximately 1,800 members. The following November, the first worship service was held at the Cloverdale location in the chapel of the Education Building (now the Children’s Building). Construction of the current sanctuary began in 1935, but the Great Depression caused numerous financial and supply issues. It was finally completed, and worship began in July 1938. Oscar E. Rice, who served as pastor from 1934 to 1941, took part in the physical labor of building the church. The church tower is named in his honor.

First United Methodist Church Window

The FUMC sanctuary was built in the Gothic Revival style and shares design similarities with Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee, which was also designed by Awsumb and was completed in 1926. The structure features a tall square tower, limestone trim, and a slate roof and is decorated with carved symbols that include crosses, birds, and shields. The interior has marble tile floors laid in an irregular pattern. The low ceiling of the narthex (the room inside the main entrance) contrasts with the soaring ceiling of the sanctuary. Visitors glimpse the altar first through a series of Venetian glass windows in the narthex and then unobstructed once entering through the doors into the sanctuary. The main aisle was completed using marble from Belgium, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee. Chipped and broken aisle tiles throughout the church are meant to underscore the imperfection of humans, whereas the unblemished tiles in the chancel represent God’s perfection.

In 1941, Gaston Foote was assigned to First Methodist Church and oversaw the acquisition of a pipe organ from Reuter Organ Company of Lawrence, Kansas. The church was dedicated on November 9, 1947, during the tenure of Guy C. McGowan. In March 1956, a service at First Methodist was broadcast on the local WSFA network, becoming Montgomery’s first televised church service. Services aired on television through June of that year. In 1963, the worship service was again broadcast and soon reached more than 6,000 homes. In the 2000s, worship services remain available via WSFA broadcasts as well as in the form of audio podcasts and livestreams on social media platforms.

In 2004, on the church’s 175th anniversary, the Alabama Historical Association placed a marker near the sanctuary’s entrance. It lists construction milestones, including the Fellowship Hall completed in 1952, the Fellowship Building in 1961, and Wesley Hall in 1996. The latter was constructed to provide additional space for the expanding congregation.

Overseas and regional mission and ministry work has always been an important aspect of service by church members and focuses on education, medical care, and construction for impoverished areas of the world. Fannie Lee Howard became FUMC’s first overseas missionary, serving in Brazil for two years beginning in 1953. Also in the early 1950s, the Women’s Society of Christian Service began to support the Nellie Burge Community Center, which today continues as Mary Ellen’s Hearth, a ministry to unhoused mothers and children launched in 2011 that is now part of Embrace Alabama Kids. In 2005 and 2006, the church collected supplies for people affected by Hurricane Katrina and constructed sheds for individuals who had no place to store their limited possessions. In 2024, members provided significant amounts of supplies to a United Methodist Church in North Carolina for distribution in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

First United Methodist Pipe Organ

Locally, FUMC offers such services as First School, a childcare ministry focused on infants, toddlers, and preschool children, and the Early Childhood & Development Center, which began operation in 1997, providing full-time daycare for children of working parents. Samaritan Counseling Center, originally located within the church, is a mental health clinic that serves the people of Montgomery and some surrounding counties, and the Respite Ministry serves individuals with memory-loss diseases and their caregivers. FUMC’s kitchen packages hundreds of frozen meals for local organizations each month. The church’s additional areas of focus include worship music, archives, and sacred arts, a ministry that involves theatre, music, and visual arts. The sanctuary, fellowship hall, and other facilities are used for a range of events, including weddings, organ recitals, choral performances, Vacation Bible School, and the annual Sacred Arts Festival.

Following a $6 million fundraising campaign, FUMC began extensive renovations in 2020 that included the Children’s Building and Fellowship Building and the installation of a custom-built Schoenstein pipe organ featuring more than 2,400 pipes in 2021.

In 2022, FUMC Montgomery participated in discussions on the topic of church disaffiliation. United Methodist Church (UMC) congregations were considering whether to remain part of the denomination or to disaffiliate and leave the UMC over issues related to LGBTQ inclusion. In July 2023, FUMC completed discussions on the topic, remaining part of the United Methodist Church.