west austintown first umc | Celebration and brief history

West Austintown First United Methodist Church, 6749 Mahoning Ave., Austintown, will mark the 170th anniversary of a faith community at the corner of Mahoning Avenue and Turner Road.

Celebration: The Thanksgiving-Homecoming Day on Nov. 20 will begin with Sunday school at 9:30 a.m. and worship service at 10:30. The Rev. Dan Bryant, district superintendent of the East Ohio Conference, will preach. A congregational dinner will follow in the fellowship hall. At 1:30 p.m. in the sanctuary, a program will feature special music, church history and memory sharing.

Early years: In 1841, Jacob Haroff, an early settler of Austintown Township, and six others had the “first meeting” in his barn on land in the vicinity of Mahoning Avenue and Turner Road, where West Austintown First United Methodist Church now stands. After a dozen years of meeting in homes, United Brethren Church was organized in 1859, and West Austintown Grace Evangelical United Brethren Church was built in 1899, west of the current church.

Mergers: Two congregations in west Austintown represented the Evangelical Church United Brethren and Methodist Episcopal. The backgrounds were similar, being fundamental and based on the word of God. In 1946, the denominations of the Evangelical Church and United Brethren in Christ merged as Evangelical United Brethren Church. Nationally, the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged with the Methodist Church in the mid-1960s to become the United Methodist Church.

Distinction: West Austintown First United Methodist Church is the merger of West Austintown Methodist Church, which had been located on Russell Avenue in Austintown, and West Austintown Grace Evangelical United Brethren Church on Mahoning Avenue. This merger was the first in the East Ohio Conference, and it is believed to be the first of its kind in the United States — thus the “first” in the name of the church. The churches agreed to merge in December of 1967 and worshipped together on the first Sunday of 1968.

Church bell dedication: The church recently dedicated the bell from the steeple of the former Methodist Church on Russell Avenue. Warren “Gene” Boyer was the only lay delegate from the Youngstown District to the General Conference and voted for the merger. The memorial was constructed with funds given in memory of Boyer’s wife, Bernice Fee Boyer, who died this year.

New building: A new church was built on the Mahoning Avenue property and occupied Sept. 24, 2003. It houses a sanctuary, fellowship hall, Sunday school classrooms and office.

Source: Church history