About Us
History
The history of Gorham United Methodist Church is much bigger than a single congregation and covers more than 90 years of time. It actually goes back to the year 1735 when two brothers, John and Charles Wesley came from England to America and worked in Savannah, Georgia as missionaries. From this simple beginning, other missionaries continued to come to the colonies and established churches. And on December 24, 1784 at the Christmas Conference meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, the Methodist Episcopal Church was officially organized.
Gorham United Methodist Church is part of the history of thousands of congregations around the world ministering under the umbrella of the United Methodist Church and the Lordship of Christ.
We are, therefore, connectional and not autonomous.
As African American congregation on Chicago’s south side, Methodism in Black Chicago had its start in the latter part of the
19th century, when Reverend S.C. Goosby established a mission church on the south side of the city. Near the end of the century, Reverend E.A. White expanded the mission work and by 1895
the first African American congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church was established.
Gorham United Methodist Church began its journey thirty-five years after the establishment of the first Black congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Chicago. Gorham United Methodist Church was founded in 1928 and it was known as Indiana Avenue Methodist Church due to its location on Indiana Avenue in Chicago’s Washington Park community.
In 1939, there was a merger of the Methodist Episcopal Church (North), the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and the Methodist Protestant Church which formed the United Methodist Church.
In the late 1940s, Indiana Avenue Methodist Church was renamed
Gorham United Methodist Church in honor of its first Pastor, Reverend Pettis T. Gorham.
Pastors of Gorham United Methodist Church
Rev. Pettis T. Gorham (1928-29)
Rev. Robert S. Mosby (1929-30)
Rev. David E. Skelton (1930-34)
Rev. R.W. Stennett (1934-35)
Rev. Dr. DeWitt Turpeau, Jr. (1935-44)
Rev. H.T. Green (1944-45)
Rev. Sumpter M. Riley, Jr. (1945-51)
Rev. H. M. Carroll (1951-52)
Rev. W.P. Kellogg (1952-53)
Rev. William H. Wallace (1953-55)
Rev. Henry B. Gibson (1955-64)
Rev. Paul L. Ayers (1964-71)
Rev. J.A. Green (1971)
Rev. Howard Hinson (1971-72)
Rev. J. A. Johnson, Jr. (1972)
Rev. Everett S. Reynolds (1973-82)
Rev. Dr. Willie B. Clay (1982-87)
Rev. Diana Facemeyer (1987-88)
Rev. Larry D. Pickens (1988-98)
Rev. Darneather Murph-Health (1998-2005)
Rev. Melvin Jones (2005-06)
Rev. Billie Jean Westmoreland (2006-07)
Rev. Aundrea Fumbanks (2008-13)
Rev. Le’on W. Mills (2013)
Rev. Pamela Pirtle (2014-2019)
Rev. Dr. Aaron J. McLeod, Esq. (2019-Present)