NRHP Reference # 97000222 Area 8,000 m² Added to NRHP 18 March 1997 | Built 1898 Opened 1898 Phone +1 865-637-0620 | |
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MPS Knoxville and Knox County MPS Address 2822 Asbury Rd, Knoxville, TN 37914, USA Architectural style Gothic Revival architecture Similar Central United Methodist, New Salem United Methodist, First Baptist Church, Church Street United M | ||
Asbury United Methodist Church, formerly known as Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is a historic church in Knoxville, Tennessee.
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History
The church is named for English Methodist evangelist Francis Asbury, who is credited with disseminating Methodism in the United States in late 18th and early 19th centuries, and who in 1800 led the first Methodist worship service in East Tennessee.
The church sits on land that was donated in 1855. The church building underwent a major renovation in 1898. Its Gothic revival architecture has been largely unaltered since that time. Subsequent additions include a backlighted painting of Jesus; an organ, piano, and chimes; a parsonage and Sunday school built in 1938; and a fellowship hall built in 1949.
The Methodist Church in America divided over the issue of slavery in 1845. For many years before the 1939 merger that formed the United Methodist Church, two separate Methodist groups held services in the Asbury church, with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, meeting for worship in the morning on Sunday and the Methodist Episcopal Church meeting in the afternoon.
National Register listing
The church building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. The National Register nomination referred to the "inspirational feeling" imparted by the Gothic revival architecture, the "sense of power" imparted by the church's steep gabled roof and pronounced arches, and the "sense of strength and stability" conveyed by the square bell tower, which has a bellcast roof.