First United Methodist Church of Somerville

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm followin' the official marker on the First United Methodist Church of Somerville, up in Burleson County. Now settle in, because this one starts the way all the best Texas stories do: with people gatherin' in the dark, holding up their own light. The year was 1901, and the Reverend H.

G. Williams organized what would become the First United Methodist Church of Somerville. Twenty-nine charter members signed on from the start, and the congregation found itself part of the Lyons Circuit.

Twenty-nine people. That's not a crowd. That's a commitment.

During that first year, they held prayer meetings in homes, which is warm enough in the mind's eye. But for preaching services, they went outside to a brush arbor, and they lit the whole thing with their own lanterns. Every person who showed up brought the light with them.

If that ain't a founding metaphor, I don't know what is. And if that weren't enough, for weeks, a pair of evangelists ran what the marker calls a chapel car, parked right out on a railroad siding. A whole church on rails.

When winter came bearing down, the congregation moved the church and the Sunday School into the schoolhouse, because in early Somerville, you used what you had and you kept going. The first real sanctuary was erected in 1903. That brush arbor and those borrowed lanterns had done their job.

Decades rolled by. An educational building went up in 1958. And then, in 1966, a new sanctuary was completed and dedicated, right there on the original church site.

Same ground where those twenty-nine people first gathered. In the church's first seventy years, thirty-four pastors led that congregation. Thirty-four.

Some stayed a season, some stayed longer. But every one of them stood in a line that ran straight back to Reverend Williams, a brush arbor, and a circle of lanterns burning in the Texas night.

What the marker says

Organized 1901 by The Rev. H. G. Williams; had 29 charter members, and was in the Lyons Circuit. During first year, held prayer meetings in homes and preaching services in brush arbor lighted by members' lanterns. For weeks, evangelists operated a "chapel car" on railroad siding. Church and Sunday School moved in the winter to the schoolhouse. First sanctuary was erected in 1903; educational building, 1958; present sanctuary was completed on the original church site and dedicated in 1966. In first 70 years, the church had 34 pastors.