FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Thursday, February 23, 2012
 Scott A. Henley, Pastor |
 Our History
~ From Methodism in Sparta 1842 – 1992 Sesquicentennial Edition by Judy Nance Cox with selections by Wilma D Kennedy
In 1842 Methodism in Sparta was born. The first quarterly meeting of the Sparta Methodist Episcopal Church took place under the circuit rider services of the Rev. George J Barrett and Elder Phillips. They had no doubt held a protracted meeting and many converts were the result. Daniel H. Hatton was appointed as pastor that first year and reported a membership of 353.
Over the next years the preachers and membership varied as did the salary paid to the minister. In these early years the pastors were appointed for only one year and usually stayed just that one year.
The reputation and tradition of this church is most solid in the area of Sunday School.
Methodists of Southern Illinois have always been noted for their interest in education as evidenced by the establishment of McKendree College in 1828. Books were very scarce in the middle of the 19th century in these pioneer towns, but the Sparta Methodist Sunday School established a 100 volume library and gave small books as rewards for memorizing scriptures, or some other accomplishment, as early as 1851.
Sunday School rolls have varied greatly in the history of this church. It seems confusing as to the causes of this, but in 1853 when Sunday School rolls climbed to 95, there were 400 books in the library.
However during a decline in Sunday School rolls, around 1876, the library had dwindled to 100 books, and in the move to the new frame building the library was abandoned.
For one hundred years there had been no library in this church. With several small memorial gifts it was suggested the church (now in the new building) start a library, and reference books and other materials were ordered. The library was set up in the vacant end of the narthex, but it was dark and in the way of people getting their coats. So when one classroom was given a fourth permanent wall it was enlarged and moved to that classroom where it is today. In addition to reference books for Bible study, the library has interesting biographies of great Christians, devotional readings, youth and children’s books, conference journals, and music reference materials.
Each current adult Sunday School class has a rich history and many memories. This church proudly offers five different class opportunities for adults.
The first property ever owned by the Methodist congregation was acquired in 1842. This was Lot 1, Block 1 of the Thomas McDill addition to the town of Columbus, the legal description of the area renamed Sparta in 1839. This property is located just north of the cafeteria of the old Lincoln school on St. Louis St and was situated on an east-west street that no longer exists. This street ran between the school and the two churches. The lot was deeded to trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church. A small frame structure, only 32 x 44 was built for a house of worship. It opened to the south and was heated by a fireplace.
The small frame church meeting house was valued at $1400, according to the Conference Journal of 1852. By 1860, the evaluation of the little sanctuary had dropped to $1000, so perhaps it was needing some repairs or this was only a reflection of the economy.
Perhaps the decline in membership by 1868 stimulated thoughts for a new sanctuary. The congregation sold their 26-year-old building to the African Methodist Episcopal Church for $2500 on December 1, 1869. After this sale, the Methodists bought the lot to the west of the one just sold and built an imposing brick edifice.
Justly proud of their new building, the Sparta Congregation hosted the Lebanon District Conference on July 22, 1874. There was still $1500 indebtedness on the new building in 1873.
In 1876, the Methodists had purchased a new site – Lot 5 of the subdivision of Lot 24 of Armour’s survey of the town of Columbus, now Sparta (the legal description of the property on the corner of St. Louis and College Streets) was deeded to the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Sparta on April 9, 1876. The purchase price was $250. They immediately erected a frame sanctuary facing College St. (When the congregation sold the brick building, they paid off a $2000 debt, according to the conference records.)
For forty years the church had rented a house to be used by the pastor and his family. In 1881 they acquired a parsonage—their first. This house was just east of the church and very convenient for both the pastor and the congregation.
The building on College Street was first remodeled in 1917. An addition was put on the west side of the church, and the entrance was moved to the corner of St. Louis and College Streets. Expansion included a large classroom on the second floor, a small room in the bell tower and another large room on the sanctuary level. The chancel, which had been in the south end of the sanctuary, was then moved to the east side.
Also a large basement was put under the new structure for Sunday School classes and a fellowship hall. An interesting story has been told of how John Jay, an active coal mining member of the congregation, felt his knowledge of explosives would facilitate in the removal of dirt in the construction of the new basement. However, he was not as knowledgeable as he thought, for he used too much dynamite and put a hole in the floor of the church as well.
In addition to the new rooms and space, three large stained glass windows were installed. These were later removed and taken to the new church built fifty years later. (Recently, in 1990, the trustees asked the congregation for donations to restore these windows. They were restored then at a cost of $3600.
In October of 1918, the church received a most interesting surprise. Mary A. Simpson left to the Methodist Church a lovely frame residence she owned at 310 East Main Street. The only stipulation was that it was to belong to the church as long as it was in existence. This became the parsonage and the small parsonage next to the church was sold.
Again the need for additional educational space and a larger sanctuary prompted the preparation for another building program in 1923. In seven years the membership had grown from 259 to 569. Sunday School average attendance had grown from 147 to 350. It was very easy to see why the congregation felt the need for more space so soon.
The size of the sanctuary was again doubled, and a second story educational unit of five large rooms for the children’s and youth departments was added. Dedication services were conducted on June 29, 1924.
In 1947 the building on the corner of College and St. Louis Streets underwent another remodeling program. With this remodeling the large sanctuary was reduced in size, and the extra space on the main floor was converted into classrooms for the Sunday School and a pastor’s office.
The sanctuary was also revamped and modernized to accommodate a Kilgen pipe organ given by Mrs. N. G. Stevenson as a memorial for her late husband. The total remodeling cost—including the $6000 organ was $17,552. The presentation of the Church for Rededication was held on November 9, 1947.
In 1958, after a Sunday School contest which increased the attendance to 400, there began talk of a new church. In 1960 the church repurchased the house next door (old parsonage) for an overflow for children and youth Sunday School classes, leaving more space for adults in the old building.
In 1954 the condition of the parsonage on Main Street was deemed deplorable. The house was sold and removed from the lot to make way for a new brick, ranch style home.
In 1963 land was purchased for a new church sanctuary. In May, 1965 the congregation approved the plans for the new church building. By November 13, 1966 the new sanctuary was ready. The building on the corner of St. Louis and College Streets, the home of the Methodists for ninety years, was sold to the Assembly of God Church on March 1, 1967 for $8,050.
In more recent years the sanctuary has been remodeled and a new parsonage was built on Spartan Drive near the sanctuary.
There are many examples of the many ways that Sparta First reaches out to those in need in the community, conference, country, and abroad. But none of this is new. Methodists in Sparta have always had generous hearts and giving hands.
In 1861 the church gave $70.30 to missions. In 1862 they gave $185 to missions, a real sacrifice for a small congregation in an era when wages were low indeed. The next year mission giving was reported in the conference records with each contributor's name and the amount given. The gifts ranged from the pastor's $10 to one of 10 cents. A total of $85.65 was taken to Conference for missions in 1867.
This kind of giving and dedication continued throughout the history of this church. Many of the outreach projects were executed by separate groups such as the youth, women, men, or a Sunday School class.
Nearly one hundred year's later, the mission program of the church was augmented by using all the loose offerings during the months with five Sundays for special mission projects. This offering was to be added to that budgeted and used at the discretion of the missions work area chairperson with the approval of the Council on Ministries.
Around 1977, the Council asked Dr. Barnard to inquire about a unit of support for some national mission work. It took several months to contact the Division of Global Ministries and finally receive the assignment of Dr. Dale and Margaret Robinson at McCurdy Schools in New Mexico, near Espanola. The church accepted and started one unit of support in March of 1979.
Since the beginning of the support of the Robinsons, there had been an interest in the work at McCurdy. In June of 1980, they paid a visit to the church. In June of '83, because of health problems, the Robinsons were replaced. The congregation then took on the support of Maurice and Rhea Bonecutter, a teaching couple in McCurdy.
The mission outreach of the church was advanced further when in 1981 Dale and Alice Walker were given to the church for a unit of support. They were from the Southern Illinois Conference and visited in the summer of '83 with a world of information about their work in Indonesia.
March of 1983 saw the final phase of a mission saturation program for the Carbondale District. The Sparta mission interpreters were from the Rio Grande Conference, a boy's school on the east coast, a new Korean church at Shiloh, and a retired missionary from Siam-Burma. In the final tallies, the Sparta church gave $400 and ranked fourth in the Carbondale District giving.
During the early 1990's when Rev Ed Hoke became the Campsite Manage at Larry Grassy United Methodist Camp, the camp began an adopt-a-cabin program whereby church sponsored the work on a cabin that needed repairs. Sparta took on this as a mission project, adopting the Galilee Lodge. Joann Edler coordinated the project with a few women, men, and some youth working on the cabin. This was also funded as a half unit of mission support in the church budget.
During the 1990's the other units of support from the church's budget went to Dale and Alice Walker working in Poland, Perry and Sandry Newberry at Red Bird Conference, and the Eagle House Ministries near Cobden, which was headed by Alan Milligan who was originally from Sparta. Besides these regular budgeted items, the church actively supported other mission projects as needs arose.
In Octobe of 1992, the church gave their share to the Carbondale District Mission Projects. These projects were the Hispanic Ministry in Cobden and the Korean Congregation in Carbondale. As a way of learning about one of these, Rev Scheller asked a representative from the Hispanic Ministry to speak to the Sparta church. These mission needs were also listed as suggestions from the Council for the special Christmas offering.
Today our youth have opportunities to be involved with youth programs, not only in the local church, but at conference and national level. The intricate structure of United Methodism was not always there though. The youth of today are certain lucky, but yesterday's youth had their own commitment and enthusiasm which built the foundation for today's programs.
During the earliest years, the young people's organization had various names. In 1889 all the groups of youth consolidated into one body, choosing the name of Epworth League. Throughout the conference the Epworth League was hailed as an excellent means of training and fellowship for all ages of youth and young adults.
The local League received its charter from the Lebanon District of the Southern Illinois Conference on February 13, 1907. Their motto was "LOOK UP, LIFT UP." Their colors were gold and blue. The first conference report of the Epworth League in the Sparta Church was in 1908 with 52 enrolled in the Senior League and 83 in the Junior League.
The Senior Epworth League, which fluctuated yearly, reached an all time high of 65 during 1925. During the early part of the thirties, the Senior Epworth League was holding steady, but the Junior League ranged between 30 and 40.
In the fall of 1934, the Epworth League Booth Festival was held in Sparta. A Booth Festival was an annual gathering of fruits and vegetables, clothing, linens, other useful items, and cash for the "Old Folk's Home" at Lawrenceville, the Children's Home at Mt. Vernon, Holden Hospital at Carbondale, and McKendree College in Lebanon. The items were divided among the four institutions taking into account the suitability of each article.
The League continued with varying degrees of strength until the union of the three churches. (In 1939 the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and the Methodist Protestant Church united to form a new church known simply as the Methodist Church.) A new organization known as the Methodist Youth Fellowship, or MYF for short, was formed. The group chose as a motto "CHRIST ABOVE ALL."
The MYF was active under the lay leadership of Mrs. Maude Rodenburg. The youth participated in monthly sub-group meetings and had a large number to go to the Youth Institute at the Beulah Campground at Eldorado in 1940 and 1941.
These years were a time of spiritual awareness, especially among the youth. They attended mid-winter week-end institutes and the week long Institute at Eldorado. The week of classes and strong evangelistic evening services brought many into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Thirty-two of these youth were brought into membership of the church.
In the early fifties, the MYF had about 25 in their Sunday night study group. By the late fifties, the youth were holding right at 30.
In the winter of 1965, the church first assisted three youth to go to the United Nations/ Washington, D.C. Seminar sponsored by the Conference. This has become a tradition, but currently the trip is taken in the summer, alternating between New York City and Washington, D.C. each year.
With the unification of the Methodist Church and the United Brethren Church in 1968, the name of the youth group was changed to United Methodist Youth Fellowship (UMYF) but was sometimes called UMY.
In the summer of 1979 one of the first local summer youth trips was taken. It was a short, fun trip to Chicago, sponsored by Gary and Judy Cox who had just moved here from Chicago the year before. The Coxes drove the first church van.
During the summer of 1980 and again in 1981, Lori Trost was hired to assist with the youth in their program. In the summer of '80, the youth went to McCurdy to participate in a work program. In the summer of '81 the youth took a trip to Colorado.
In 1982 two high school graduates were hired to help with the summer youth program. That summer, along with Carl and Sharon Holland, they went to the Worl'd Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee.
At about this time Pam Seals served in some Conference and national positions during her years in the UMYF. Pam is the only youth from Sparta to become President of the Southern Illinois CCYM (Conference Council on Youth Ministry). Also, from 1983 to 1985, Pam served on the Steering Committee for NYMO (National Youth Ministry Organization). This meant that she traveled to Nashville by plane several times for meetings to plan the next National Youth Ministry Convocation which is held every two years.
During the sponsorship of Mary Jo and Jerry Juenger, the UMY continued to grow. Summer help was no longer hired as the Juengers sponsored the next two trips. The first one was to Eureka Springs, Arkansas in '84. Then in '85, the senior highs went to Gulf Shores, Alabama.
The following summer a handful of senior highs went on a work trip to a mission in California. Janet and Roger Gerlach were the sponsors for this trip.
The next trip, during the summer of '88, was a work trip followed by some fun days in the Rockies. The work portion of the trip was in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where the youth worked on a timber improvement project of the United Methodist Camp there. The youth and several sponsors worked hard cutting trees and burning.
No trip was taken in 1989, but under the leadership of Joann Edler as youth coordinator and Rev. Gary Scheller, there were two fun trips taken the following two summers. First, the youth traveled to Eureka Springs, Arkansas and Branson, Missouri. There they saw a Passion Play and enjoyed camping together. The second trip was to Nashville, Tennessee where they visited United Methodist offices and buildlings, such as UMCOM and the Upper Room. They also enjoyed sightseeing in Nashville. Although these were not work trips, youth had to earn points toward the cost of the trip by working on local service projects and attending youth events.
Due to lack of interest, the work trip for the summer of '92 was canceled. However, after taking a summer off, the youth set a goal for a work trip to Tennessee or Florida for the summer of 1993.
Over the past fifteen years, some of the youth sponsors and coordinators have been: Jan Seals, Gary and Judy Cox, Pam and John Baker, Kathy and Kenneth Robinson, Carl and Sharon Holland, Mary Jo and Jerry Juenger, Janet and Roger Gerlach, Joann Edler, Larry Schupbach, Mary Hauskin, and Pam Hass.
Over many years the Junior and senior highs from Sparta had been especially active in the camping program. Although the youth had formerly gone to Beulah Institute as far back as 1940, in the 1990s involvement was with Aldersgate Youth Institute at the Little Grassy campsite near Makanda. At least a van load of youth attended each year with the usual procedure being extra vehicles for the luggage and the overload of campers. Not only youth attended. Joann Edler, Jan Seals, Rev. "Mike" Michels, Gary and Judy Cox, Rev John Grob, Rev Gary Scheller, Patty Kohne, John Radliff, Cindy Bruno, and Dorothy Heuman are some of the adult counselors from Sparta that have attended. The growth in this camping program is large due to expansion of the junior camps which teaches youngsters to enjoy the camping experience. By the time they get into UMY, the campers are usually "hooked" on camping. Some yough are known to make huge sacrifices in order to attend Aldersgate. Asbury Camp, a new junior and senior high camp as of 1992, drew one youth from Sparta, Janine Heuman.
Besides the camping program, Sparta youth are typically involved in annual District and Conference level events such as retreats, rallies, and YAK (Youth Annual Konference) held at the Ramada Inn in Mt. Vernon each February. At Youth annual Konference each year the church giving the most to the Youth Service Fund is honored. Sparta usually came in first or second place for total or per capita giving. (Youth Service Fund is a United Methodist mission organization supported by youth)
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