Celebrating 150 Years

         We are still heading toward our 150th Anniversary celebration on June 6-7, though like much of public life these days, this event is subject to change. We DO have a whole year to celebrate, so we’ll move ahead if and when we are sure we are out of the viral “woods.” Details will be finalized when we know more in a couple weeks or so. We are certainly in a historical time in United Methodism, in Christianity, and in organized religion in general—major events events, recorded services online, drive-in church, real-time transmissions of services, and so on in our congregation and across the country. Perhaps we’ve never NOT met for so many Sundays, though that would require checking through microfilmed newspapers to see what we did 100+ years ago during the “Spanish Flu” (so-called because its name came from the fact that only papers in Spain, neutral at the time, were free to publish the real truth about deaths). Historically, we’ve come a long way in knowing about “germs” since then, so we’ll really have something to celebrate in the coming year. Ed Duling, Historian