Our Daily Show Interview! Elsah United Methodist: 150 Years of the Historic Building
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ELSAH - Elsah United Methodist Church will celebrate its 150th anniversary with a special service.
At 6 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 13, 2024, community members are invited to the church, located at 2 Valley Street in Elsah. Reverend Joseph Scheets will give an hourlong sermon, followed by a reception at Farley’s Music Hall.
“It’s a celebration of community,” said Pastor Alan Abert. “This is a community thing, so we’re inviting everybody from the community in. The building itself has been iconic. It’s been the face of Elsah for a long time.”
Scheets will be preaching from Psalms 46, and his sermon is titled “Be Still and Know That I Am God.” The service will also include some hymns from 1874.
Abert shared that the Elsah United Methodist Church was started by Elsah’s earliest settlers in the 1800s. In 1859, the Elsah Methodist Society built a two-story red brick home, which still stands in Elsah today, and held services there.
The current church building was dedicated on Dec. 13, 1874. Today, the church sits on its original limestone foundation and has the original white oak paneling on the outside. It was restored in 2017.
Abert noted that the church survived the Flood of 1993 and a strong rainstorm last summer. He remembered watching the water roll down the hills surrounding Elsah, but the building was not damaged.
“It just reminds you of the solid foundation that churches have traditionally been built on, and I’m not talking about the physical part of it. There’s this little white building just surviving all the water on the hill,” he said. “There’s a little bit of excitement about the ability to come together and to be reunited with that environment because the building itself looks about the same as it did 150 years ago.”
Also this weekend, the Elsah United Methodist Church will sponsor a Christmas celebration alongside the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Elsah. At 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024, the churches will host their annual Christmas event for the community to enjoy.
“I’m sure our friends across the street would agree, theologically, this makes no sense. But then, who said it has to?” Abert laughed. “It’s a part of who we are as a church in the community.”
The Elsah United Methodist Church is connected with Alton Grace United Methodist Church and the First United Methodist Church of Hartford. Abert preaches at all three churches on Sunday mornings.
He noted that many churches are seeing dwindling attendance numbers. He believes people lack a sense of community. He thinks people of all ages have a “definite thirst for the spiritual message,” and he tries to share this message with his congregation every week.
“The church as an institution has kind of ceded its position in the community, so maybe we’re at a great point in our country to maybe take some of that back,” he explained. “I think what existed then and what we don’t have today in our society is that there was a sense of community. I really think that we’ve lost sight of the importance of that sense of community. So that’s what I try to emulate with these three churches.”
This spiritual message and sense of community will be major parts of the 150th anniversary celebration. Abert hopes to see many people from across the Riverbend community come out to enjoy the experience. He is proud of the Elsah United Methodist Church’s history, and he is excited to see what the future holds.
“It’s going to be a party weekend,” he added. “We’re really looking forward to it, to be able to say 150 years. What does God have in store for us for the next 150?”
For more information about the 150th celebration on Friday, Dec. 13, 2024, visit the official webpage.
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