First & Summerfield United Methodist Church has stood on the corner of College and Elm streets in downtown New Haven for more than a hundred years, and the Methodist witness on that ground reaches back even longer, to the summer of 1789. The congregation describes itself as a people of justice and hope who gather in the heart of the city as a place of worship, community, and fellowship. Within New Haven and within the wider United Methodist Church it is known as a progressive reconciling congregation, a declared sanctuary church for immigrants facing deportation, and a steady host to unhoused neighbors on its front portico. Worship is hybrid, with people joining in the sanctuary at 10 a.m. on Sundays and over Zoom, and the congregation keeps both gatherings closely woven together.
Two Centuries of Methodism on College Street
The Methodist presence in New Haven began on June 21, 1789, when Jesse Lee preached on the steps of the New Haven Court House. From those early revivals grew First United Methodist, the older of the two congregations that would eventually merge to form the present church. Summerfield United Methodist, based in the Newhallville neighborhood, was founded in 1871. In 1981 the two congregations came together as First & Summerfield United Methodist Church.
The building has been on College Street for more than a century. The sanctuary is up one flight of stairs on the Elm Street side, reached through the front portico, and the temperature inside rises and falls with the weather outside. Members and visitors have been folding fans into their bulletins and peeling off sweaters in the pews for generations.
Sunday Morning at Ten, In Person and on Zoom
Worship runs about sixty minutes each Sunday at 10 a.m. and is offered simultaneously in the sanctuary and on Zoom, with a TV in the front of the sanctuary showing the Zoom participants and a camera and microphones carrying the in-room gathering back to those online. After the postlude, the Zoom Worship Leader stays on for a fifteen-minute Zoom Coffee Hour of casual conversation and fellowship.
The service is fairly traditional in style. Hymns are accompanied by organ and piano using the United Methodist Hymnal and a few additions, prayers are spoken in unison or led by the pastor or a lay leader, and each week includes at least one scripture reading, usually drawn from the Revised Common Lectionary. There is always a children's moment, a sermon (Senior Pastor Rev. Jamie Michaels preaches on most Sundays, with students, lay speakers, visiting clergy, or community partners filling in from time to time), a time of community prayer called "Joys and Concerns," an offering, and a sending blessing. The order of service is printed in a worship guide, and hymnals sit in each pew for those who want to follow the music.
Offering plates are not passed at this time. There is a small wooden "Offering" box at the back of the sanctuary, and giving is also available online or by mail. Masks are optional inside the building, though the congregation asks visitors to be ready to mask if local conditions change. Chairs are spaced with groupings available for households, so there is plenty of room to spread out. Live transcripts are turned on for each Zoom service.
The Open Table on the First Sunday
On the first Sunday of each month, the congregation celebrates the Eucharist. Communion is offered with an open table, meaning anyone who wants to receive is welcome, whether or not they are a member of First & Summerfield or of any church. The pastor breaks the bread and hands a piece to each person, who dips it into the cup of juice before eating and returning to a pew. Those who prefer not to come forward are visited in the pew by communion servers. Whenever possible the bread is gluten-, soy-, dairy-, egg-, and nut-free, and the cup always holds non-alcoholic grape juice so that no one is left out.
The church's framing of the meal is direct: it is God's table, not the congregation's, and the invitation is God's gift of grace. Anyone who would rather remain seated during communion is welcome to do so.
Children in the Sanctuary and Downstairs
Kids are welcome everywhere in the building. Pastor Jamie's own toddler roams the sanctuary during worship, and visitors will not be the only ones to hear small voices during the service. Each week includes a children's moment at the front benches, with a message just for the kids. On the first and third Sundays of the month, the children then head downstairs with a trained, background-checked adult for an all-ages Sunday School time. On communion Sundays they come back upstairs to join their families at the table. Otherwise they wrap up downstairs and meet their grown-ups after the service.
Children who would rather stay in the sanctuary are welcome to do so. The back of the room holds books, crayons, and colored pencils, and children are free to move as their bodies and brains need. Parents who want to come along to Sunday School are welcome to join them downstairs.
Beloved Collective for Young Adults
Through its Beloved Collective Campus Ministry, First & Summerfield reaches students in and around New Haven and any young adults between 18 and 35 who want to explore spirituality in community. The collective centers on the kinds of questions that come up for people navigating school, early careers, and the wider world, and it is one of the church's main on-ramps for newcomers who are not looking for a traditional congregation.
A Sanctuary Church for Immigrants
In 2017, as federal immigration enforcement escalated in neighborhoods across Connecticut, the pastor at First & Summerfield asked the congregation to consider becoming a sanctuary church. A delegation attended United Methodist sanctuary training, presented what they learned to the Church Council, and watched the council vote unanimously to join the movement. Soon after, the church welcomed an Ecuadorian immigrant into physical sanctuary, and the work has continued since. The church's front steps have hosted a steady stream of immigration rallies over the years, several of which have been captured on video by Robert Menefee.
The Community on the Portico
First & Summerfield's front portico, with its roof and its gate, turned into something more than an entrance in 2025. A community of unhoused neighbors began taking shelter there, and the congregation decided to try something different rather than displace them. Working with city partners who specialize in housing and homelessness, the church learned that even when every shelter and warming center in the region is at capacity, roughly 450 people in the area still have no bed indoors. Sending the community elsewhere would only have pushed them into colder and less safe places.
So First & Summerfield built, week by week, what it calls a mutually accountable community. Members of the church meet weekly with the people living on the portico to talk through community standards and values, to negotiate conflict, and to plan together for the next stretch of weather. Most of the people on the portico are known to the church by name, and the community is notably respectful on Sunday mornings. Visitors who feel comfortable are welcome to walk past the community on their way up the front steps to worship. Those who would prefer not to can ring the doorbell at the College Street entrance instead.
Partnering with DESK
Members of First & Summerfield have supported the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, known locally as DESK, for years. DESK runs an almost-daily dinner service, a food pantry, and a drop-in center for people experiencing homelessness. The church encourages anyone interested in helping to reach out through the office and to sign up as an individual volunteer through DESK directly.
A Reconciling Congregation
First & Summerfield has long declared itself a reconciling congregation within the United Methodist Church, committed to the full participation and leadership of LGBTQ people. In 1977, the older First UMC provided a home to the Metropolitan Community Church in New Haven, a faith community largely made up of LGBTQ individuals and leaders. Since the early 1990s the church has been part of the Reconciling Ministries Network, a community of United Methodist congregations around the world that have declared themselves openly welcoming of LGBTQ individuals and families. Leaders of the church helped create Methodists in New Directions, a local reconciling organization that drafted the Covenant of Conscience, of which First & Summerfield was one of the first congregational signers. The church continues to pray, act, and protest for a larger Christian church that centers those on the margins.
Progressive Theology in a Traditional Service
The congregation locates itself on the more progressive end of the Methodist spectrum and does not insist on a single line of belief among its members. Its theology centers on a God whose grace - mercy, love, and forgiveness - is at work in the world. Members look to scripture, experience, reason, and tradition to discern what God desires for and from them today. They hold, broadly, that God loves and desires goodness for all people, that God calls them into care for one another and for the world, that human beings often fail to live up to that call, and that in Jesus, God came to live among them in a way that no earthly force can overcome. They see themselves as God's hands and feet on earth, with a responsibility to bring hope, healing, comfort, freedom, compassion, kindness, and love to all creation.
Leadership at College Street
Senior Pastor Rev. Jamie Michaels was born in Chicago, grew up in North Carolina, learned and trained in Washington, D.C. and California, and served campus ministries and churches in California and Massachusetts before arriving in Connecticut in 2023. She earned her BA from Brevard College and her MDiv from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. She believes that the Wesleyan tradition offers the world a vision in which the work of personal faith transformation and the work of social transformation inform one another, and that the work of justice is at the center of the church's mandate. Assistant Minister Rev. Byunghun Kim leads the congregation's Korean-language ministry. Robert Girard serves as organist and choir director, providing the musical backbone of the Sunday morning service.
Visiting First & Summerfield
The church building sits at 425 College Street in downtown New Haven. Downtown New Haven parking is free on Sundays, and on Sunday mornings there are usually plenty of spaces on College Street. Two handicapped parking spaces are on Elm Street. The best entrance on Sunday mornings is the Elm Street entrance, up the front stairs on the portico. Dress however you are comfortable; some people wear jeans, others wear button-downs and dresses. Communion is on the first Sunday of the month, the table is open, and you do not need to be a member to participate. If climbing the stairs to the sanctuary is not possible, the congregation offers a full worship experience on Zoom, with live transcripts and an active online fellowship after the service. The congregation also gathers a Korean-language worship service alongside its English-language ministry.