First United Methodist Church has been a pillar of the downtown Erie community for decades.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The church, located at Seventh and Sassafras streets, celebrated a major milestone Sunday, 200 years of serving the Erie community.<\/p>\n
For generations, First United Methodist Church has been a place for people looking for faith, connection, and a sense of community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe church belongs to Jesus Christ, and if we understand Christ\u2019s call on our lives, we have been blessed by God\u2019s love to pass that love on to others,\u201d said Sandra Steiner-Ball, Bishop of the Western Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church.<\/p>\n
The church celebrated its 200th anniversary with a special Sunday service following a weekend of events.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the really important aspects of the celebration is that there is a remembrance of baptism,\u201d Bishop Steiner-Ball said.<\/p>\n
The bishop traveled to Erie to take part in the milestone celebration.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt points to faithful people sharing God\u2019s love, serving joyfully, and leading courageously out in this community and making sure that people know that they are loved by God and that God will and does care for them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Churchgoers said it\u2019s the sense of community that keeps bringing them back week after week. They believe that same community will help carry the church into its next 200 years.<\/p>\n
Gordon Schmidt, a longtime church member for nearly thirty years said he found a sense of community at First United Methodist Church.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives you a place to call home, and you know the people after coming here for so long. You feel comfortable coming in, and it\u2019s a beautiful building,\u201d Schmidt said.<\/p>\n
Bishop Steiner- Ball hopes the church will continue to grow over the next 200 years and continue spreading its message throughout the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will multiply out in the community so that in 200 years, more people will know Christ, more people will know the love of God, more people will know that they are valued and valuable, and they are loved and lovable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A community meal followed Sunday\u2019s service. The weekend celebration also included a musical performance and an open house for the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First United Methodist Church has been a pillar of the downtown Erie community for decades. The church, located…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4806,66539,120541,524,136,138,137,17433,120065,120540,120542],"class_list":["post-290491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-200th-anniversary","tag-baptism","tag-church-service","tag-community","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-faith","tag-first-united-methodist-church","tag-sandra-steiner-ball","tag-western-pennsylvania-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290491","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=290491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}