NEXT MEETING: Sept. 19, 2023 at 7pm at St. James UMC, Coburn
Next workday is Sept. 30, 2023 starting at 8:30am

Officers:
President: Devra Wolfe
Vice President: Melanie Styers
Treasurer: Ed Biddle
Secretary: Rosemary Shearer

You are invited to join our cemetery association’s work focused on the care and preservation of the site located on Paradise Road. The Historical Paradise Church Cemetery has great historical significance for the United Methodist Church as the location of the 7th General Conference of the Evangelical Association and where a new bishop was approved.

If you have any questions about the effort, contact Pastor Theresa Heiser.

“Like” and follow our Facebook page to stay up to date with the work of the group!

OUR SITE’S IMPORTANCE TO METHODIST HISTORY

An excerpt from The Chronical 2019, Part III, Putting Down Roots

The 1839 General Conference of the Evangelical Association held at Paradise Church was arguably the most significant to date in the history of the young denomination. The actions taken at that General Conference effectively changed the loosely connected followers of Jacob Albright (originally Johannes Jacob Albrecht, his family changed their last name after his death in 1808 – click here for an excellent biography) into an organized denomination with well-defined structure and built-in accountability. Hitherto the Discipline included no statements defining or limiting the power of General Conference, so that it had in effect unlimited power to alter the doctrines and government of the denomination. This body adopted a Constitution defining the power of future General Conferences and stating that the articles of faith could not be altered by any future assembly.

This body also restructured the denomination physically, beginning the notion of well-defined conferences. The Evangelical Association had previously divided itself into Eastern and Western geographic areas, but now three specific conferences were defined – the East Pennsylvania Conference (which extended into New York), the West Pennsylvania Conference (which extended into Maryland and
Virginia), and the Ohio Conference (which extended into Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin) – with provisions made for additional divisions/conferences as needed.