{"id":288999,"date":"2026-09-18T15:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T15:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288999\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T15:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T15:40:10","slug":"church-celebrates-200-years-of-service-in-erie-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288999\/","title":{"rendered":"Church Celebrates 200 Years of Service in Erie | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For 200 years, First United Methodist Church of Downtown Erie has been more than a place of worship.<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 1826, the historic church has been a part of the Erie community for generations. Its current building dates back to 1859.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past two centuries, the church has built a legacy of service, working to meet the needs of people in the community and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>The church welcomes people from all backgrounds and generations and offers both traditional and contemporary worship services.<\/p>\n<p>Its outreach includes programs assisting people experiencing homelessness, disaster-relief efforts and meal-packing events aimed at fighting global hunger.<\/p>\n<p>For Ann DiTullio, who has been a member of the church for 60 years, that spirit of service remains at the heart of the congregation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe still have that same spirit here. We still can-do spirit. And we want to be here for people who want to know more about Jesus and His loving message.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The church is marking its 200th anniversary with a celebration running September 18 through September 21.<\/p>\n<p>A complete schedule of anniversary events is available on the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fumcerie.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">church&#8217;s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For 200 years, First United Methodist Church of Downtown Erie has been more than a place of worship.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4806,54939,136,138,137,120065,120066],"class_list":["post-288999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-200th-anniversary","tag-community-outreach","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-first-united-methodist-church","tag-homeless-assistance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}