Liturgical Arts & Outreach Center
Old Whaling Church
Corner of Main and Church Streets
Edgartown, MA 02539
508.693.4424
Hours of Worship:
Trinity Worship Center, 11 AM
aka Trinity United Methodist Church
Trinity Park
across from the
Tabernacle, Oak Bluffs
10 AM September - June
visit our website: http://umcmmv.org/
11 AM July & August:
Pastor Richard M. Rego, 508.693.0589
Edward Rose, Organist
Directions:
The Edgartown Liturgical Arts & Outreach
aka Edgartown United Methodist Church
(The Old Whaling Church)
corner of Main and Church Streets, Edgartown.
Edgartown UMC
Pastor Richard M. Rego
We are a church that proclaims our faith through our actions. Our theological stance affirms free inquiry on matters of Christian doctrine; our faith is guided by Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason. We are a welcoming congregation, open to all, celebrating diversity. We align ourselves with interdenominational and interfaith groups that care for those in need, alleviate injustice, foster peace, and model the love of God.
The Edgartown United Methodist Church is a church with a warm heart, active in outreach and joy-filled worship. We run a community supper in the winter from November through March on Monday nights. These are open and free to all in the community. We have found that these suppers meet the needs for food and fellowship within the communities of Martha's Vineyard. We also walk in the annual Crop Walk of Martha's Vineyard and support local needs as well as reaching out in times of crisis around the world. We are involved in many of the inter-denominational and inter-fiath services and programs throughout the year.
Our building is no longer owned by the United Methodsit Church but is now the property of the Preservation Trust and is used for many community services and programs during the year. We have community concerts, graduations, family court, wedding and funerals as well as many other community concerts programs and events that take place in our facility. If you are interested is booking the building for an event you need to contact the Preservation Trust at 508.627.4440 and speak to Janet.
Church History
The "Beautiful Old Church of Whaling Days" was dedicated in 1843, a lasting memorial to the designer Frederic Baylies, a native of the town and member of the Church. This edifice was built when Edgartown was entering upon an era of great prosperity. Her ships and masters were sailing every ocean bringing home cargoes of oil yielding fortunes. These hardy whalers built a church in keeping with their faith, symbolic of their freedom of spirit and reverence for Him who rules the waves. They gave their church the fine proportion, beauty of line and dignity of bearings of their ships. The model of the whaling ship over the center door is a memorial to these men of spirit.
In the front vestibule the whalers and their families met to ascend the stairs to the sanctuary of worship. Nowhere in the Church is the originality and artistry of the designer, Frederic Baylies, more pronounced. As the whalers built their ships so they built their Church with the same strength of construction. The huge hand hewn beams of red pine were brought from Maine on a whaling bark "The Rhine" by Captain John O. Morse of Edgartown in 1842. There are beams 50 ft. long, without splicing, and all put together with wooden pegs and square joinings.
In those days each member owned his own pew, furnishing it with carpet, pew cushions, footstools, footwarmers, hymn books and Bibles. The pews were boxed to keep the warmth of the foot stoves in and the draughts of the cold Church out. The back of each pew is a single pine panel 8 feet long by 20 inches wide, furnished at the top and sides with a single rail of mahogany. In 1869 the present Simmons-Fisher tracker action organ was installed in the gallery of the Church. The music of this old instrument is of rare devotional quality.
In the tower, standing a majetic 92 feet above the ground is the old weathered bell of 1843. It was connected to the Town Clock in 1889, a gift to Edgartown in memory of Chase Pease by his grandson, Charles Darrow. The larger clapper has struck on the passing of each hour for the residents of many generations. From the belfry, the old bell has rung out for over a century calling people to worhip, carrying on the spirit of the whalers who dedicated their Church to the glory of God and the welfare of mankind, reminding us of the freedom and faith upon which our nation was founded.
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