About Us
A brief history of Hope United Methodist Church as told by the late Marcia Rivers to Pastor Matthew Kofahl.
The roots of Hope United Methodist Church begin with Pekin Methodist Episcopal Church.
The original Pekin Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1824 as a Sunday School in a home located on present day Upper Mountain Road to the east of the hamlet. By 1835, the Sunday School had grown large enough to be incorporated as a congregation. The congregation built their first building along Townline Road, just above the present day cut. The original church building still exists, first as a VFW post located in Sanborn, and now as a chapel located on the Sanborn Historical Society property. In 1856, the growing congregation decided to build a much larger stone building. The stone was quarried on a local farm down the street from the church and was completed in less than a year.
The period following the completion of the church building was one of growth and controversy. In 1857, controversial reformer B. T. Roberts was appointed to the church as pastor. Roberts advocated for free will giving for the support of church ministries rather than pew rental and was an outspoken supporter for the abolition of slavery. Though he only intended to reform the Methodist Episcopal Church, his stances were controversial enough to have gotten him stripped of his Elders orders by the Genesee conference of the M. E. Church. By 1860, he went on to found the Free Methodist Church. Meanwhile the church at Pekin continued to thrive, planting churches in nearby hamlets and villages such as Sanborn, Porter Center, Dickersonville, and Shawnee.
The church in Pekin continued to thrive through the 20th century, as did congregations in Dickersonville and Sanborn. Changes in economics and population demographics saw the three churches form a cooperative parish called “Tri-Church” in the 1990s and later a full merger of the three congregations back to the Pekin location in 1997, where the parish was given its current name, Hope United Methodist Church. Some 200 years after its founding as a Sunday School, Hope U. M. Church continues to serve its community and the larger region by proclaiming Jesus and his Gospel. They are a church with a long, storied history, and a future in mission and evangelism. Thanks be to God!
Hope UMC is part of the official United Methodist Church.
Check out their website for more information on our beliefs, the latest news and more.
