Our Local History
Church History
Union of Three New Brunswick Methodist Churches in 1961
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St. James Methodist Church | Pitman Methodist Church | First Methodist Church |
The excerpts below are from the pamphlet entitled "Methodism in New Brunswick, N. J. 1811 - 1961 and Commemoration of the Union of the Methodist Churches of New Brunswick, June 11, 1961" (Click on the title for a .pdf file of a transcription of the original pamphlet.)
The conditions in New Brunswick which in the middle of the Nineteenth Century made possible a rapid increase in Methodists and the formation of two new Methodist Congregations did not continue in the Twentieth Century. By 1950 the Congregations of the three New Brunswick Churches together were about the same size as that of the parent Church a century earlier. In 1958 a survey of the New Brunswick Methodist Churches was conducted by the Division of National Missions of the Methodist Church. The results of this survey made available to the Congregations of the three churches, joined with the prospects of community changes in the decades ahead were factors which brought together in the Spring of 1960 representations of the three Congregations to discuss the formation of a single Methodist Church in the Community.
A committee was formed of six representatives from each congregation appointed by the official Boards of the three Churches. This Committee began meeting regularly in the fall of 1960 and after a number of meetings and considerable discussion agreed that a union of the three Methodist Congregations should provide:
(1) A strong new church centrally located in New Brunswick.
(2) A full church at worship and full classes at all age levels in the Church School.
(3) A strong youth program for both Junior and Senior high school students.
(4) An adequate ministerial, educational and clerical staff.
(5) Greater opportunity for effective Community Service including a more effective liaison with Methodist Students in the University.
The objectives were considered realistic and within the reach of a single united congregation. The work of the committee was approved by the official Boards of the churches and a resolution of Merger drawn by Kearney Y. Kuhltau was presented and approved May 24, 25 and 26, 1961 at the Quarterly Conferences of the Congregations and made binding on the Churches by Congregational vote of each church on June 8, 1961 and at a Special Quarterly Conference on June 11.
The organizational meeting of the new Church was held in the Pitman Methodist sanctuary on June 11 at which time the church officers were selected. During the Summer of 1961 the official name of the new Church was chosen to be “The Methodist Church at New Brunswick” and a Board of Trustees with equal representation from each of the former Congregations selected.