The People
Our congregation is friendly and welcoming. We have a heart for our under-served, and often forgotten, community members.
We are actively involved in helping people in need, in Sarasota and around the globe.
We partner with other churches and agencies to help make a difference in our community and our world.
We seek to be the people God has called us to be in order to fulfill the mission of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Mission Statement
To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Vision Statement
To be a church that makes a positive difference in the lives of people by welcoming all, by
reaching out to those in need, and by loving all people.
What We Believe
- Every person in this world lives under God’s grace.
- God loves each of us and is present with us from our first breath until our last.
- God is not a judge who wants to condemn us, rather God wants to bring each of us into an intimate relationship with Him.
- God came to us in Jesus Christ, who through his example, teaching, and sacrificial death communicated how much God loves us.
The Church
The First United Methodist Church, is also known as First Church, because we were the first church organized in Sarasota and built the first church building in 1891.
Our worship services are known for excellent and uplifting music, with top-notch musicians.
The sermons are refreshing,often humorous,and always relevant.
History
Methodism in the U.S. dates back to 1736, when John and Charles Wesley came to the New World to spread the movement they began as students in England.The United Methodist Church was created on April 23, 1968, when the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church united to form a new denomination.
United Methodists share a historic connection to other Methodist and Wesleyan bodies. United Methodist leaders often speak of the denomination as “the connection.” This concept has been central to Methodism from its beginning.
Organization
The United Methodist structure and organization began as a means of accomplishing the mission of spreading scriptural holiness. Methodism’s founder John Wesley recognized the need for an organized system of communication and accountability and developed what he called the “connexion,” a network of classes, societies, and annual conferences.
Within the connectional structure of The United Methodist Church, conferences provide the primary groupings of people and churches for discernment and decision-making.
Wesley described Christian conferencing as “spiritual discipline through which God’s grace may be revealed.”
At every level of the connection, church leaders and members come together in conversation, or conferencing, to discuss important issues and discover God’s will for the church. The word, conference, thus refers to both the assembly and organization of people as well as the process of discerning God’s call together.
The District
First Church belongs to the Southwest District of the Florida Conference.
The Southwest District of the Florida Conference is made up of roughly 80 churches on the southwest coast of Florida, from Bradenton to Naples, and extends eastward to include Frostproof, Sebring, Lake Placid, and Clewiston.
Rev. Dan Jackson serves as the district Superintendent. For additional information on the Southwest District of the Florida Conference, visit www.flumc.org/southwest
The Annual Conference
First Church belongs to the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.
The Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church stretches more than 700 miles from just west of Tallahassee to the Florida Keys. There are about 700 churches with approximately 300,000 members from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.
The Florida Annual Conference works in partnership with the Eastern Angola Annual Conference and the Methodist Churches of Cuba and Haiti in the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ.
Rev. Kenneth Carter serves as the Bishop of The Florida Annual Conference. For additional information on the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, visit www.flumc.org.
