Ebenezer United Methodist Church
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
Ebenezer UMC as it looks today.
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
The Ebenezer Methodist Episcopal Church was established in 1871, the same year the city of Huntington was incorporated. With limited facilities to meet, the future members appear to have met together with future members of First Baptist Church at a location on Norway Avenue near present-day Spring Hill Cemetery. The first church building for the congregation was located at the intersection of Eighth Avenue and Sixteenth Street. Ebenezer Methodist Episcopal Church’s first minister was the Reverend Jacob Owens. The church’s second home was at the intersection of Sixteenth Street and Artisan Avenue where it stayed until the congregation moved to its current location along Eighth Avenue. The cornerstone of the new church was laid in 1917 by the Reverend A. H. Whitfield. A plaque on the sign located in front of the church includes: “In Memory, Rev. and Mrs. C. E. McGhee,” which could be a reference to the Reverend Charles Edmond McGhee who founded the West Virginia Colored Orphans’ Home in Huntington. The congregation was renamed the Ebenezer Methodist Church in 1939.
In 1965 or 1966, renovations began at the church and a new parsonage was under construction. The new parsonage was completed and consecrated circa 1967 to 1969. The church was renamed the Ebenezer United Methodist Church in 1968. A Day Care was started in 1976 with the anticipation that a full time outreach center could be started in the near future. The Ebenezer Community Outreach Program began in the late 1970s during Reverend Richard A. Miller’s term as pastor. In 1982 the church purchased property across the street for a future Ebenezer Community Outreach Building. Construction started on the community center in 1984. A plaque in the Ebenezer Outreach Community Center indicates the building was completed in 1984 with Walter S. Donat, Inc., as the architect. Walter Donat is also indicated on the architectural drawings for First Baptist Church’s 1960s main building. The Day Care located in the Ebenezer Outreach Community Center was licensed for seventy children in 1985–1986. The church was also very involved in foreign missions in the 1980s. The Ebenezer Community Outreach Center continues to offer programs to the local community such as preschool child care, after school and summer children's programs, and a clothing closet, baby supplies, and school supplies for those in need. Beginning in 1986, a medical clinic was operated for two years on a volunteer basis from the Ebenezer Outreach Community Center. This free medical clinic was then placed under a medical advisory committee and, in 1988, the clinic began opening for eight hours a week in association with the residency program at Marshall University.
Through grant funding and donations from area United Methodist Churches, the clinic continued to operate on an expanded basis through the early 1990s. To receive greater funding opportunities Ebenezer Medical Outreach incorporated as a separate organization and separated from the Ebenezer Outreach Community Center by having a separate board of directors. The medical clinic moved its physical operations to the Douglass Centre, the former Douglass Junior and Senior High School, in early 2003. The Ebenezer Medical Outreach, Inc., a separate organization that started through the concerns of the Ebenezer United Methodist Church continues to provide medical services to the Fairfield West community. The church is a potential nominee for the National Register of Historic Places.