Connecting With Our Legacy

Connecting with our Heritage

A Vision Becomes Reality

Established with a vision to bring Church, Family, and Community into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, Wesley Chapel Methodist Church continues that vision by engaging congregation and community through worship, discipleship, and community outreach in Sylacauga and surrounding communities.

With intentional ties with its namesake, John Wesley, and the Church he established in London, England, known as “The Mother of World Methodism,” Wesley’s Chapel proclaims a message of the assurance of personal salvation founded upon faith in Jesus Christ.

A Vision Becomes a Reality
Desiring to extend the work of Sylacauga’s First Methodist Church, Anniston District Superintendent, Dr. J. M. Gibbs, Pastor Dan Whitsett, and approximately fifty enthused members gathered at the home of Mr. and Mrs. C.C. Hare. After enjoying a time of fellowship and exhortations calling for the need for a new church to better serve the spiritual needs of the community, the gathering moved to the front lawn and there organized the Wesley Chapel Methodist Church.

Pastor Whitsett admitted losing members from his own congregation would be difficult, but it was necessary because as, one individual stated, Wesley Chapel was “born because of the spirit which transformed John Wesley…is still present and available for those who desire to spread ‘scriptural holiness.’”

Aldersgate Day
The date and the time for the gathering was specifically planned and coordinated with the date of the Church’s namesake’s spiritual transformation. Aldersgate Day marks John Wesley’s significant turn in his spiritual relationship with Christ. It was May 24, 1738, in the English Ward of Aldersgate, John Wesley records in his journal, “About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.[1]

On this date, Wesley’s walk with Jesus was forever changed and Wesley Chapel’s legacy began.

Two-hundred and thirteen years later Thursday evening, May 24, 1951, at “about a quarter to nine”, twenty-five people stepped forward forming Wesley Chapel while pledging $3000 towards the startup. With newly appointed seminary student, Rev. Ralph Porter, the congregation’s first service met in the home of Willie Bolton, October 19, 1951. The first service in the newly constructed Church facility was January 27, 1952. Built upon property donated by W. D. Whetstone on what was then known as Quarry Road, now West Park Street, the Church was constructed on the southeast corner of the subdivision known today as Merry Meadows. With its completion Whetstone donated an organ.

Wesley Chapel’s completion stood as a monument to what one member describes as “a reality as the result of prayer, and work, and preparation, and planning, and more prayer.” It was not an effort taken lightly but included not only the efforts and resources of the members, but also infused with the leadership and direction of God through prayer.

Renovated through the years, Wesley Chapel’s first extension was a Sunday School extension in 1963, with other subsequent improvements including a sanctuary extension and additional education plant. It was in 1982 that the Sanctuary was adorned with exquisite stained-glass windows, a feature that was to adorn the Fellowship Hall when later renovated.

The sanctuary today stands as a work of art second to none. Its high ceilings and stained-glass windows provide a very sacred and reverential worship atmosphere, with its beauty enhanced by the marble altar and wooden cross demanding attention when entering the front doors. The marble altar is the work of local artisan the late Claude Dobson, whose took slabs of marble and fashioned them into mantle facings, tabletops, communion tables and baptismal fonts found locally and throughout the United States.

Today the congregation represents an enduring and dedicated people devoted to the Wesley Chapel mission of bringing Church and Community into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and meaningful expressions of extending the love and compassion of God our Father which He has so richly bestowed upon them.

  [1] Wesley, J. (1909–1916) The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley. Edited by N. Curnock. London: Robert Culley; Charles H. Kelly, pp. 475–476.

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