Our Story

John Wesley, priest in the Church of England, forms Methodist Societies around London to “support one another in the pursuit of holiness of heart and life.”

The Methodist Episcopal Church is formed at the Christmas Conference in Baltimore, led by Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury.

Bishop Francis Asbury, the most famous of the early circuit-riders, visited Asheville and found Methodists here, but they were not an organized group and had no church building. (Asheville had a population of several hundred.)

Circuit-rider Reverend David B. Cumming came to Asheville to organize the Methodists.

A small, white-framed structure was built on our present location and was Asheville’s first church- our ancestor church, Asheville Methodist Episcopal Church.

Long-standing disagreement over slave ownership by clergy culminated in a General Conference vote to suspend Bishop James Osgood Andrew of Georgia. Southern delegates dispute this discipline resulting in a schism that leads to the formation of a separate denomination, the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Asheville ME Church affiliated with the ME Church South.

An expanding congregation moved into a new, larger, brick structure that underwent several expansions over the next 45 years.

Black members of the congregation, long experiencing segregation in worship, communion, and Sunday School, decided to withdraw their membership and establish a church of their own after being denied permission for a black minister to preach in the sanctuary. Hopkins Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was formed. https://hopkinschapelamezion.org/our-history/

The now Asheville Methodist Episcopal Church South began to establish satellite churches. (The population of Asheville was about 2600.)

The name Central Church was first used to designate the downtown church from the satellite churches established around the city.

Plans were underway for a new house of worship. (Asheville’s population was now 15,000.)

Construction began on the new facility, our current structure.

Nine years after the Boy Scout program came to America from England, Troop Four of Central Church received its charter. It has been in continuous existence since.

Church membership totaled more than 2,000, and a renovation project was in full swing. The sanctuary was enlarged and the balcony added. A wing was added to the south that included the Fellowship Hall and kitchen as well as Sunday School rooms.

Central Church celebrated its 100th birthday in July.

The Methodist Episcopal Church and Methodist Episcopal Church South reunite and, along with the Methodist Protestant Church, join to form the Methodist Church.

The Chapel was built and dedicated to the 16 young men of the church who gave their lives in World War II.
A three-story Sunday School complex was added on the south side of the Fellowship Hall.

The Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the United Methodist Church.

The administrative offices were renovated.

The Fellowship Hall was renovated.

The church sanctuary was remodeled.

In November of 2006, Central and Haywood Street United Methodist Church merged, creating two campuses under the name of Central United Methodist Church.

Central celebrated its 180th Anniversary — Reaching into the Future from a Foundation of Faith. In the course of research on this occasion, the shared history of Central and Hopkins Chapel was rediscovered, which rekindled and strengthened our kinship in faith. This culminated in Central joining in worship to celebrate with Hopkins Chapel their 150th Anniversary and sparked closer examination of how to follow Jesus in manifesting racial justice in our community.