by Melissa Lauber
UMConnection Staff When United Methodists return to Baltimore for the 2005 annual conference session, they will have the opportunity to stand on holy ground. It is in Baltimore where the church's founders once stood in what is now Old Otterbein UMC. 
MELISSA LAUBER | | Old Otterbein UMC, the oldest continuing worshiping community in Baltimore, is undergoing renovations. |
To prepare for the conference and address some of the ravages of age, the church is undergoing a face-lift renovation, repairing cracks in the ceiling and walls and being repainted. They will complete and celebrate the renovations just weeks before annual conference May 26-29. The meeting place at Sharp and Conway streets is the oldest continually worshiping community in Baltimore. It was in existence four years when George Washington was elected president. It served as the cradle and mother church of the former United Brethren in Christ denomination, and on that site, the congregation of Lovely Lane was organized. It was at the Christmas Conference, held at Lovely Lane in 1784, where 35 men gathered, at what is now 206 E. Redwood St., to create the Methodist Episcopal Church in America. Francis Asbury was elected the church's first bishop. Old Otterbein is the only building remaining in Baltimore in which Asbury preached. The Rev. Benedict Swope oversaw the construction of the church in 1772, when Baltimore was a city of 5,000 people. When Swope became a missionary to Kentucky, Asbury persuaded the Rev. Philip Ottebein to lead the congregation. Otterbein had come to the New World to preach to the German immigrants. He remained the pastor at Old Otterbein (then called German Evangelical Reformed Church of Howards' Hill) until his death 39 years later in 1813. He is buried in the churchyard. In 1785, Otterbein oversaw the construction of a new church building, the one on the site today, at a cost of $6,000. It was made from discarded ship ballast bricks from the nearby harbor. The pews of the new church accommodated hoop skirts, but men and women were separated for worship. On the men's side, each pew held two spittoons. The tower of Old Otterbein holds two bells, crafted at the same foundry that cast the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. When the bells were installed in 1789, Otterbein invited other German ministers in neighboring states to come and hear them. They formed the 'United Ministers,' and this group went on to meet at Peter Kemp's farm in Frederick on Sept. 25, 1800, forming the United Brethren in Christ ? often called the first truly American denomination. Over the years the bells rang out on several occasions, including: sounding the alarm when a British squadron sailed up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore in 1814; on Feb. 7, 1904, when a fire destroyed 1,343 buildings in 86 city blocks and came within two blocks of the church; following the ends of World War I and II; for the funerals of four assassinated presidents; and for the arrival of ships with German friends and relatives. The German community was very prominent in Baltimore. The minutes of some of the first city council meetings were recorded in German as well as English and 30 congregations in the city held services in German. However, on April 6, 1917, the day the U.S. declared war on Germany, Otterbein ceased its German language services, German Street was renamed Redwood and Baltimoreans began to call sauerkraut 'liberty cabbage.' The Evangelical United Brethren and the Methodist churches united in 1968.
On May 27, annual conference members and visitors will be invited to tour Old Otterbein UMC, and continue on tours to either Lovely Lane UMC, the Mother Church of Methodism; Sharp Street Memorial UMC, the first black Methodist church in the city; Justice for our Neighbors, which ministers to immigrants at the Baltimore Hispanic Initiative; or Aunt CC's Harbor House, a home-like setting for young men operated by Centennial-Caroline Street UMC. The tours, which will run from 7 to 10 p.m., are $5. For more information, e-mail
To register, go to the conference's Web site at www.bwcumc.org. | 
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