This warm, friendly worship service begins with a piano accompanied hymn sing. The smaller setting of the chapel creates a more intimate worship. The service lasts about an hour.
8:30 a.m.
Join in worship as our top-notch Celebration Praise Band glorifies our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is a more informal service, that lasts about 50 minutes.
9:45 a.m
Our more formal service featuring superb music with organ, piano, and chancel choir. Professional and gifted musicians enhance the experience of worship which typically lasts about an hour.
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.
