Boone – We are a church in and for and of Boone, North Carolina, a place of learning, leisure, outdoor beauty, seasonal variations, football, skiing, foliage, and a lot more. Our goal at BUMC is to be a blessing to our neighborhood, a place where people connect and grow from neighbors to friends, and a witness to the body of Christ amidst a university, vacationers, part-time and full-time residents, and any other neighbor God brings to us. We love our town, and we love our God, and we want to see the two of them not only meet, but marry.

United -Technically, this portion of our name comes from a denominational merger in the 1960s, but it is appropriate in a larger sense as a sign of our desire to be part of God’s drawing together of all people to himself. Jesus prays in the gospel of John that the church might be one “that the world might believe” (17:21). United Methodists want to draw on truth wherever it can be found, far outside the boundaries of the church, so we may offer it back to God in prayer and praise and love our neighbor well.

Methodist -The people called Methodist trace their spiritual roots to a revival in the Church of England under John and Charles Wesley that sought to restore the church to a place of and for the poor, that sought to lift up praise to God through hymns, that demanded individual conversion to Christ and not just a perfunctory Christian identity through citizenship, and that sought to reawaken the church to its more vivid and faithful ancient days. Early Methodists were mocked for being so silly as to think there was a “method” for holiness–as if by simply praying, doing good works, and loving God you could become good. Well, yes, we thought, we do believe that. The name stuck. The Wesleys have some 100 million spiritual heirs throughout the world, approaching a billion if you count Pentecostals.

Church – Like the rest of the church of Jesus Christ we trace our roots to 33 AD at Golgatha, and Jesus’ saving work for us there. We respect and cherish the traditions of the church in their range from Eastern Orthodox to Catholic to the Baptists and charismatics with whom we share so much of our home here in western North Carolina. The church is like Noah’s ark–it is a God-sent source of shelter from the storm; it is the bride of Christ in whom he delights, it is an assembly of the faithful, not-quite-saints and still-quite-sinful, trying to work out our salvation with “fear and trembling” (Php 2:12).