First Methodist Church of Pampa

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Five people. That's all it took.

Five charter members walked into Pampa in 1906, and they did something nobody else in that town had done yet. They organized a church. Not just any church, the first denomination ever organized in Pampa.

First Methodist Church, right out of the gate, before the dust had even settled on this corner of Gray County. Five people. You sit with that a minute.

Now, two years later, in 1908, something started rising up out of the ground. A one-room church, painted white, with a steeple reaching up toward the sky. One room.

One steeple. The whole dream wrapped up in one modest little building. But here's the thing about a congregation that starts with five determined souls.

It tends to grow. By 1924 the church had purchased the very site you'd recognize today. And they weren't done.

By 1928 a brand new sanctuary was completed, something built to match where this church had come from and where it was headed. The years kept rolling, and so did the congregation. Additional buildings were added.

More land was acquired. Renovations were made as the needs of the people grew and changed. Educational programs, worship activities, outreach work reaching out into the community around them.

All of it spreading from that original seed. Five charter members in 1906. By the time this story was put to marker in 1996, the First Methodist Church of Pampa had been serving that area for more than ninety years.

Five people started something they couldn't even fully imagine. Turned out, they imagined just enough.

What the marker says

Five charter members established the First Methodist Church in 1906, the first denomination organized in Pampa. In 1908 a one-room white church with a steeple was built. This church site was purchased in 1924, and a new sanctuary was completed in 1928. Additional buildings and land were acquired as the congregation grew and renovations to the structures were made. The church provides many educational and worship activities for its members and supports the community with several outreach programs. The First Methodist Church has served the area for more than 90 years. (1996)