Christ United Methodist Church will celebrate its 50th anniversary on Sunday, Sept. 28, with a special service and fellowship. Former members and pastors who have served the congregation have been invited to attend the celebration.
The anniversary is actually a commemoration of the merger of two Merrill Methodist Churches. In 1964, Grace Methodist Church merged with the Scott Memorial Methodist Church. The Grace church was vacated and the two congregations melded at the Scott Church, renaming it Christ United.
A coffee fellowship will start Sunday at 9 a.m. and a breakfast will be served. Historical displays will be on view. The church service at 10 a.m. will not be a typical service, but a time for reminiscing.
The earliest documented religious services in Jenny (the community later renamed Merrill) were conducted by Methodist circuit riders in 1870 at the Third Ward School. The first resident pastor, Thomas Partridge, served from 1873-1875 in what was then the Methodist Episcopal Church of Jenny. In 1881, the first Methodist church in Merrill was built at the corner of Park and First streets. In 1888, the trustees of the church voted to change the name to Methodist Episcopal Church of Merrill. This church would later become Scott Memorial Methodist Church of Merrill, but there is no record of when Scott’s name was added.
Scott refers of course to T.B. Scott, a sawmill owner and founding father of the community that would become Merrill. The present church at the corner of Mill and Third streets was built with funds left by T.B. Scott’s widow, Anna B. Scott, after her husband’s death in 1886. The church was dedicated on March 13, 1892. Scott’s will also included $10,000 to construct the city’s first library building.
The bell in the church was a gift from S.S. Merrill, for whom the city is named. The stained glass windows are memorials to the Scotts.
Christ United Methodist Church is also affiliated with Wildwood Chapel in the Gleason area. The chapel was dedicated in 1933 and has shared a pastor with the Merrill congregation ever since.
The German Methodist Episcopal Church of Merrill started in 1888. Its name was changed to Grace Methodist Church in the 1930s and merged with Scott Memorial Methodist Church in 1964 to form Christ United Methodist Church.
The Grace building was located at the corner of Polk and First streets and is now home to the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The church was built shortly after the congregation was founded in 1888. Between 1888 and 1964, 15 pastors served the Grace Methodist Church. At the turn of the century, the pastors served the Methodist congregations in Merrill, Pine River and Corning churches.
As the name would imply, all services at the German Methodist Episcopal Church were initially held in German. That changed in 1933, when the members voted to hold services in English every other Sunday. The German services continued until 1937.
David Donner, a member of Grace then and Christ United now, noted that the conversion from German to English in the Grace church also paved the way for the merger.
“Grace Methodist Church was basically English,” Donner said. “There was really no need to stay separate anymore.”
In 1961, after Scott Memorial’s Parson Greene was killed in an automobile accident, the conference decided that one pastor would be appointed to lead both Merrill Methodist churches. Rev. Robert Firary was appointed to that post and served through the merger of the two congregations in 1964. That same year, the Grace membership voted to sell its church, parsonage and land to the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Jerry Weber, also a former Grace member, said he’s glad to see the old Grace building still in use as a church.
“I think it’s great the church building is still standing,” he said.
Some of the money from the sale of the Grace church was used in 1987 to purchase the former funeral home nextdoor to Christ United Methodist Church. The church signed a 20-year lease with the Merrill Historical Society and that building served as the historical society museum until the lease expired in 2007.
The Faith in Bloom building campaign kicked off in 2005, with plans to expand the church to the west. The $700,000 expansion project made the church handicapped accessible, increased parking and added space for fellowship and Sunday School classrooms.
For more information on the anniversary celebration, call the church at 715-536-4676 or visit the website at [email protected].