Come experience this warm, friendly worship service which begins with a hymn sing accompanied by piano. The smaller setting of the chapel creates more intimate worship. The service lasts just under an hour.
8:30 a.m.
You are invited to join worshipers as they sing to the Lord with the top-notch Celebration Praise Band. More informal than the other services, this worship of about 50 minutes will lift your spirit.
9:45 a.m
This more formal service features superb music with organ, piano, and chancel choir. Professional and gifted musicians enhance the experience of worship which typically lasts an hour. Creativity, relevance, and meaning are hallmarks of this service.
11:00 AM
Places to Eat Near First Church
on Sunday
the first church
Organized in 1891, First Church was the very first church in the village of Sarasota, Florida.
As the only Sarasota organization in existence today that existed in 1891, First United Methodist Church parallels and represents the history of Sarasota.
The first services were in a little school building on Main Street with the Reverend E. F. Gates, a horseback riding circuit-rider, as the first pastor. Reverend Will Tresca was sent to formally organize the church. He gathered twelve members in a Main Street storeroom for the signing of the charter. That property, on the corner of Pineapple Avenue and Main Street at Five Points, was purchased for $40. That first building looked more like a barn than a church.
Throughout the decades, this congregation has been constantly re-evaluating its mission and purpose in serving those locally and globally. As a downtown church, half of the congregation drives more than three miles to attend worship and other church activities. We now find ourselves on the cusp of a revitalizing downtown Sarasota with burgeoning opportunity for our mission - to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
