First United Methodist to celebrate 150 years of service

First United Methodist Church of Boerne celebrates it sesquicentennial this weekend with a special Sunday service, followed by a definite call to action.

It was May 1875 when the Boerne Methodist Church was founded, with the Rev. James Monroe Witt, a circuit rider, presiding over its initial days.

Church historian Richard Tomlinson said Witt was able to gather five Methodists into a congregation and create the Boerne Church. The church was assigned to the Bandera circuit. Witt rode the circuit and stopped in Boerne at least once a month to preach. Congregations met wherever they could … in stores, in saloons, in the open air.

Current senior Pastor Kim Burke has presided over the church and its roughly 2,000 members since 2021.

“I am honored to be in a position of leadership at this historic moment, standing in the line of pastors who have served this church and this community for 150 years,” Burke said. “We have always been a church which takes seriously the call to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world.” The church program for the 150th celebration on Sept. 28 contains a list of all the First United Methodist pastoral leaders, from Witt to Burke. The first spiritual leader actually assigned to the church was the colorful Rev. Andrew Jackson Potter, known as “The Fighting Parson of the Texas Frontier.” He would put his Colt revolver and Winchester rifle on display and dare hecklers to interrupt his preaching.

While extensive research has pegged the list of church leaders, little is on record about the founding, or charter, members.

“We do not know the names of the founding members, but the family of Daniel and Emily Perrin and their 11 children were early supporters of the church,” Tomlinson writes. “Daniel, a graduate of Dartmouth College, was a teacher. They came to Texas in 1873 and settled on Balcones Creek, five miles from Boerne, where Daniel built a schoolhouse.”

One treasure recently unearthed in the First United Methodist archives is an altar bible printed in 1884 in New York City by the American Bible Society and presented to the Boerne church in 1888.

According to an inscription in the bible, it was donated by George A. Harrison, a Union veteran of the Civil War. To make these bibles affordable, they were printed on inexpensive paper. This high-acid paper is not durable, and the bible cannot be restored. However, it is retained as a cherished possession of FUMC.

In 1879, the tiny Boerne congregation erected its first church building, carefully placed just outside the town limits on the hill next to the Catholic church. The church was built by a young carpenter and aided by volunteers. It consisted of a single 20-foot by 40-foot room.

In 1899, when William Adolphus Govett was pastor, the decision was made to move the church building from that location into Boerne. The building was moved up Main Street on log rollers to its present location on James Street. The building became part of the FUMC campus as “Memorial Hall.”

Many restorations of the church building were made over the years until a new sanctuary opened in March 1960, constructed with a capacity of 150 people. As Boerne and Kendall County continued to grow, so did church membership and needs. Ground was broken for the church’s Educational Building on Oct. 2, 1966, opening in the spring of 1967.

With the completion of Interstate 10 linking Boerne to San Antonio, the population of Kendall County and Boerne accelerated. A larger sanctuary was needed to accommodate a larger congregation. Construction of the new sanctuary was begun in 1992 and the building opened on Easter Sunday 1993 with a capacity for 500 people.

Education needs grew beyond the ability of Saxon Hall to serve all the growing and diversifying requirements of education, and the Christian Education Building was created in 2011.

Burke said service and outreach are an essential element of the church — and the congregation will get busy right after the service, doing so.

“We think it fitting that, as we gather to celebrate, we also use this occasion to pack 10,000 meals for ‘Rise Against Hunger,’ a global initiative to feed, particularly through school programs, those facing hunger now,” Burke said.

Following the service, FUMC members will gather and work together for a start-to-finish meal assembly experience, combining rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and a packet of 20 vitamins and minerals into life-changing meal packages.

“A United Methodist is someone who joins the mission and ministry of Christ by putting faith and love into action,” the Rev. Burke said. “We believe that God loves all people, and we share in expressing that love and creating a place where everyone belongs.”