EDMONDS — In the 100-year history of Edmonds United Methodist Church, there have been fires and fiery preachers.
There have been schisms, and there have been socialists.
Through it all, what might be Edmonds’ oldest congregation has persevered, becoming what the Rev. Dr. Kathlyn James, senior pastor, calls a “wonderful community of people.”
The church houses the city’s largest food bank, regular anti-poverty conferences, election-season debates and community gatherings of all sorts.
Naturally, the church community has had its share of characters.
The Rev. O.L. Anthony, for instance, led the church in 1933, when it was still downtown at Fifth Avenue and Dayton Street near a dance hall that regularly spilled drunken patrons, and empty beer bottles, onto the church’s lawn.
“He liked to hit the ceiling over things that irritated him,” a church history published in 1959 says. An Englishman, Anthony was often forced to clean the church’s lawn, a task that, the history notes, caused him to “hit the ceiling many times.”
Anthony was succeeded by the Rev. Butler, a pastor who “some would call a socialist and (who) preached it from the pulpit,” the history says.
The church’s history will be celebrated Feb. 22 with a reception attended by dignitaries such as a bishop from California, and from long-time members like Mildred Engels.
Engels, 93, first stepped into the church in 1927. She and her three siblings were each baptized and married there.
“My whole life is wrapped around the church,” said Engels, who rarely attends these days because of health problems. “I enjoyed it. I loved it.”
When the church was founded downtown in 1909, at the first of its three Edmonds locations, it counted eight men and nine women as members.
Now, it has 680 members.
At first it was called the Edmonds Episcopal Methodist Church, then the Hughes Memorial Methodist Church and then, finally, the Edmonds United Methodist Church.
In the early 1940s, the Hughes Memorial church burned, and had to be completely rebuilt.
Some members left the church in 1959, when it moved from the wonderful, Spanish Mission-style Hughes Memorial building at Fifth Avenue and Dayton Street to Caspers Street, said Floyd Barker, the church’s historian.
“It was a heart-wrenching, and a little congregation splitting, decision to move up to ‘East Edmonds on the hill,’ as they called it,” Barker said.
Time has, of course, presented more difficult decisions for the congregation. The issue of homosexuality among community leaders was raised recently, and led to the departure of some members who didn’t approve of the church’s relative permissiveness.
But the congregation’s ability to maintain a diversity in beliefs, and to tolerate doubt and embrace love, makes the church what is is, said Jeanette Murphy, a member for 17 years.
When her husband began working in Yelm, the Murphys almost moved to be closer to his job. Instead, they stayed in Edmonds because they couldn’t leave their church.
“It has a major role in our lives,” Murphy said. “Once you come, you kind of get hooked.”
Hooked, that is, into a wonderful place for Edmonds and for worship, the Rev. Dr. James said.
“It is part of the fabric of this community,” James said. “The church itself is a community, too. It has been housed in different buildings, but wherever we get together and worship and serve, that is the church.”
Reporter Chris Fyall: 425-673-6525 or cfyall@heraldnet.com
A celebration marking Edmonds United Methodist Church’s 100th year is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 22. A service will be held at 10 a.m. with a reception at 11:30 a.m. The church is located at 828 Caspers St.
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