Chatham Methodist Church To Commemorate 175th Anniversary

The congregants of the church now called the First United Methodist Church of Chatham have been serving the people of Chatham in myriad ways for well over two centuries.

Throughout 2024, the church will commemorate the 175th anniversary of the landmark building at 569 Main St.

“We’re a community church,” Assistant Pastor Frank “Sonny” Gada said on a recent weekday morning as he showed a visitor around the church. “Everyone’s welcome here.”

When the church welcomed visitors to concerts on the afternoon and evening of First Night Chatham, a 175th anniversary banner designed by congregation member Phyllis Nickerson Power greeted them. And in keeping with the church’s tradition as a community church, events through 2024 will be tailored to draw the community and the church closer.

An anniversary banquet is “high on my priority list,” Pastor Thom Gallen, 80, said. The anniversary events will move into high gear during the summer months as “many in the congregation are only here in the summer.”

Some of the many ways the church reaches out to the local community are through its food pantry and its thrift shop. In the summer the church sells lobster rolls on the church’s front lawn, and in June it hosts a strawberry festival. “We try to do as much as we can to be of use to the larger community,” Gallen said.

Methodists had been worshipping in Chatham for a good half-century before they gathered the wherewithal to build their own Greek Revival-style church on the corner of Main and Cross Streets, according to “A History of Methodism in Chatham 1799-2012” by William E. Sissell Jr., a former pastor at the church. The lumber was shipped on a schooner from Maine and delivered to the southern shore of Oyster Pond. From there, oxen dragged it up the hill to the site of the church. The church was dedicated in December 1849.

Topping the church is a “wedding cake” spire rising 90 feet from the ground. The spire is also known as a “Gospel spire” with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each awarded a corner pinnacle. With the wild windstorms that blow in from the ocean, a spire has been found more than once on the church’s lawn and had to be restored via a crane.

In 1852 the clock was installed in the spire. (The clock is now owned by the town, which is responsible for its maintenance.) And in 1899 the Tiffany-style stained glass windows were installed in the sanctuary. The windows were financed by Marcellus Eldredge and his wife Mary. (Marcellus was also a benefactor of the Eldredge Public Library, just across Main Street from the church.) The windows, made in New York City of jewel-toned glass, are a special point of pride for the church. Several years ago the windows were removed and restored. The figures in the central windows depict Mary holding the baby Jesus and Joseph in his royal clothes after being sold into slavery.

“There have been many, many changes to the property over the years,” Gallen said. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Sunday school was large — in 1962, 198 pupils were enrolled — so in the 1960s an education building with an office was built behind the church. In the 1990s a “connector building” was erected linking the sanctuary with the education wing. In anticipation of the 175th anniversary, the church “made little bits and pieces of changes.”

Gallen served at the church from 1990 to 2001 and then returned in 2021. “He has had a big impact, far-reaching more than Chatham,” Power said.

Gada had his four-year anniversary at the church last September. “I’m a people person. I like helping people find their inner self,” Gada said.

One addition that the congregation is proud of is the Noack organ that was installed in 2011. During the upcoming anniversary year, a series of concerts is planned, some featuring the church organist/pianist and music director Anna Glig, a regular performer with the Cape Cod Symphony, and others featuring guest musicians, Gallen said.

In addition to serving the local community, the church also sponsors missions. Down in the Fellowship Hall, where red cloths cover the tables where many a “covered dish supper” has been served and after-service coffee is poured on Sundays, is a list of church missions including the Chatham Ecumenical Council for the Homeless (CECH), the Lower Cape Outreach Project, Habitat for Humanity and The Heifer Project.

“We have always been a church for outreach and mission work,” Power noted. A church member, Phyllis Tileston, was an original founder of CECH in 1993.

Through the years the makeup of the congregation has changed. While there were once a great number of families, now the congregation is largely made up of people in their 50s and 60s who have retired to Chatham.

“We try to keep track of who’s moving into town,” Gallen said, adding that the church mails newcomers a welcome letter.

Worship services are held every Sunday at 10 a.m. For more information on the church’s 175th anniversary events, check the events listings on the church’s website, chathammethodist.org throughout 2024.