In Richwood, New Jersey, near Routes 322 and 55, Richwood United Methodist Church is known for a sanctuary that has hosted worship since 1860, for two Sunday services each week, and for ministries that carry the work of the church from families in Richwood to children in Camden and a school in Haiti. The church describes itself as friendly, with people who care about each other and try to provide a quality program of ministry to the church family, the community and the world.
Two Sunday Services, and a Class for Every Child
Worship takes place at 8:30 and 10:00 a.m. each Sunday in the historic sanctuary at 104 Richwood Road. Sunday School for children age 3 through 6th grade is offered during the 10:00 service, and nursery care is also held in the sanctuary building during that service. Children are dismissed from worship to their classes.
Classes are divided into three groups:
- Pre-School through Kindergarten
- 1st, 2nd and 3rd Grades
- 4th, 5th and 6th Grades
Each teacher leads one Sunday a month, and people are welcome to join the teaching team. Craft sessions are scheduled occasionally on Sundays before classes begin, and special events bring children together outside Sunday mornings, including an Easter egg hunt, picnics and swim parties. Vacation Bible School is another program for children.
From the White Horse Tavern to Richwood UMC
The church's story begins on May 22, 1860, when the Mount Pleasant Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in a small community that had been called White Horse (1825), Campbell's Cross Roads, Mount Pleasant (1840), Five Points (1879), Richwood (1889) and "Hell Town." Preliminary meetings were held at the Clems Run School House, about a mile south of the White Horse Tavern, which stood where a recreation field sits today. The present Richwood Academy, a schoolhouse at the time, was later used as a church, and in fair weather meetings were held outside in a grove of trees.
At a meeting on June 19, 1860, a formal resolution was passed to build a new church. Two thousand dollars was pledged for a building thirty-eight feet wide by fifty-six feet long, with a twenty-eight foot post, and matching funds came from townspeople and the surrounding vicinity. About a month after the church was organized, an article in the Constitution, a weekly paper published in Woodbury, welcomed the prospect of a church rising opposite the place where the "sink of pollution," the White Horse Tavern, once stood. "Where sin abounded grace shall much more abound," the article predicted. The owner of the tavern, William Mounce, became the first class leader, soon left the tavern business and became an advocate of religion. The church was incorporated that July.
Stained Glass, a Balcony and a Kerosene Chandelier
Through the 1800s the church was called Mount Pleasant and Five Points, and improvements followed over the years. A belfry was erected on the front of the church in 1891, and an iron fence was placed in front of the church and around the graveyard on May 29, 1889. A heater and chimney were installed on December 21, 1923, at a cost of $426.55 paid for by the Ladies Aid. At one time the balcony extended down both sides of the sanctuary, and hooks on the front windows by the choir and organ lofts held curtains across the stage or pulpit area for entertainment.
In February 1925 the stained glass windows in the sanctuary were installed. A huge chandelier with glass prisms hung in the center of the church and was first lit with kerosene before it was electrified in December 1925. New side lights were installed at the same time, which removed the balcony from the side walls, and the present balcony was probably renovated around that period. The first Sunday School room, behind the pulpit along with a basement room, was added in 1940. A new Sunday School building was built on ground adjoining the church in 1955, and it remains the church's Educational Building.
Memorial Gifts for the Building and for Students
During the 1960s the congregation became known as Richwood United Methodist Church through a conference vote, and extensive work in the 1960s and 1970s covered the exterior with siding and painting and refreshed the interior with new pews, carpeting, painting, new front doors, recovered altar chairs and kneeling cushions. A memorial fund was established so that monetary gifts presented in memory of loved ones who were members could purchase items for the church, including new carpet in Sunday School rooms, paddle ceiling fans in the sanctuary, a sound and recording system, new communion trays and a memorial plaque listing the names of deceased members for whom memorials were established.
That fund, arranged through the Zee family in loving memory of J. Wilmer and Elsie S. Zee, also provides scholarships each year for graduates who are members of the church as they continue their education, and it funds Bibles and other awards for Sunday School students. Separate gifts have marked the church's life as well: a new Allen organ was given in 2002, a handicapped ramp was financed and built that year by Howard Heritage and dedicated in memory of his parents, Howard and Lina Heritage, and a handicapped entrance door was given in memory of Lisa Ferrara by her family.
A Fellowship Hall Built Across the Road
The church bought about five acres of property across the street for $100,000. Three payments totaling $47,000 were made in the first year, and the remaining $53,000 was financed with a ten-year mortgage that was paid off in less than three years. During 2000 the church replaced the furnace, made the final payment on the property and began a campaign to build a Fellowship Hall there. Approval to begin building came in January 2006, and the hall was completed in 2007. It has been used for church and community functions since then.
The Fellowship Hall, at 111 Richwood Road, is available to nonprofit organizations and for private not-for-profit use by church members and by member-sponsored individuals. The Main Hall is $325 plus a $150 security deposit for up to five hours, with $60 per hour for each additional hour. The Kitchen is $175 plus a $50 security deposit, and the cleaning fee is $175. Members' Main Hall and Kitchen fees are waived, with a donation to help cover utilities appreciated. Arrangements for the hall are handled at 856-589-0874.
Choir, Praise Band and Two Cantatas a Year
Music anchors worship at Richwood. The choir sings in church most every Sunday and presents two special cantata programs each year. Music Director Mildred Herman, who earned a BS in Music Education with an emphasis in piano from The King's College in New York and taught in both public and Christian schools, makes all the arrangements for special music in the worship services and plays either the piano or the organ. Jim Stiles leads the praise band, organizing its music and rehearsals and handling outside bookings, and he also serves as the church's audio and visual technician.
Methodist Youth Fellowship on Sunday Nights
The Methodist Youth Fellowship, or MYF, is for students in 6th through 12th grade. During the school year the group meets most Sunday nights from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. for Bible study, discussion, prayer and time together. Games and snacks come first, and Bible studies begin around 6:45. Special activities are planned for the summer months. The group meets in the Youth Room of the Fellowship Hall, and its goal is to nurture a committed personal relationship with Jesus among the youth of the church through spiritual development, Christian leadership skills and Christian peer support.
Knit and Crochet on Friday Mornings
The Knit & Crochet Ministry meets every Friday from 10:00 a.m. to noon in the Youth Room of the Fellowship Hall. Everyone is welcome, and the meetings are work meetings where people bring whatever project they are making. The group makes baby blankets, afghans and more to give away to those who need them, and the ladies are glad to teach anyone who wants to learn.
Service That Reaches Beyond Richwood
Richwood UMC keeps a long list of ways to serve, and several are ongoing partnerships:
- Family Promise provides solutions for family homelessness, and Richwood serves as a host church, providing meals for a week at a time, roughly once a quarter, for local families in the program. Karen Luttenberger is the contact for the program.
- Kids Alley offers at-risk children in Camden a safe place to hang out, study and eat, and the church supports that ministry throughout the year with Easter baskets, backpacks and school supplies, and Christmas presents for many of the children.
- A school in Mellier, Haiti is supported with help paying teachers' salaries and funds for rebuilding classrooms.
- World Vision is supported by the youth group, which raises money each February with the 30-Hour Famine to help hungry kids.
- Angels Outreach in Pitman is supported by collecting food and funds and by sending volunteers to help with their work.
- Samaritan's Purse receives shoeboxes each fall for distribution to those in need around the world.
Inside the church, a Card-Making Ministry produces all-occasion cards for personal use, church use or to send to soldiers, and volunteers help with fundraisers. A men's breakfast gathers men of all ages for good food, company and meaningful faith discussion. Giving to the church can be done online through its giving service.
Pastor Cam Overbey and the Sunday School Team
Richwood's pastor, Cameron Overbey, grew up not far away in Swedesboro and is glad to be back in South Jersey. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theology from Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, and a Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. After ordination he has served churches in the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference of the UMC since 2014, including Cranford from 2014 to 2022 and Red Bank from 2022 to 2026. He is passionate about building beloved communities of faith that embody the love of Christ and help make a place for all people to experience and know that love. He and his wife Kelsie have two children, Samuel and Matheson.
Sunday School Superintendent Karen Bennett coordinates volunteers, organizes materials and teaches some of the classes. A graduate of Houghton College with a degree in elementary education, she teaches fifth-grade math, science and social studies in Gloucester Township, runs an after-school club and coordinates her school's teacher support and mentoring program.
The Wednesday Word
For the middle of the week, Pastor Cam makes a short video called The Wednesday Word, offering faith reflections in five minutes or less. The church's YouTube playlist holds the midweek videos.
Windows That Carry Names
Nearly every piece of stained glass in the sanctuary and the halls around it carries a name. The sanctuary windows, installed in February 1925, remember Jonathan and Sarah Jackson and John and Rulon in the choir loft, honor the W.C.T.U. in the organ loft, and memorialize or honor William E. and Harriet Heritage, Clayton and Margaret Eastlack, Joseph and Almedah T. Munyon and Albertus and Emma Heritage in the side windows. The narthex windows were given by the Ladies Aid and the Adult Bible Class. In the room behind the sanctuary, windows honor James L. Eastlack, Rev. and Mrs. William R. McClelland, J. Howard and Viola A. Porch and Charles W. Doutt, and memorialize Frances Emma North and the Richwood Epworth League, while the exit door in that room is in memory of J.S. and C.M. Clendining. At the end of the hall in the Educational Building, a stained glass window in memory of Charles C. and Sarah B. Souder was moved from the room behind the sanctuary when the Educational Building was erected.
A Cemetery Kept by Volunteers
Richwood United Methodist Church also operates a cemetery under New Jersey Certificate of Authority Number 306. A small committee of volunteers manages it, and all proceeds from the cemetery are used for maintaining the grounds and, as the state requires, for the Maintenance and Preservation Trust Fund. Grave lots are priced at $750 each, double grave lots at $1,400, the surface area charge for memorials is 75 cents per square inch, and the internment charge is $300, with grave opening and closing fees normally assessed by the mortuary. Internments, grave lots and memorials are arranged through the church.
A Church Growing with the Neighborhood
Richwood United Methodist Church describes itself as a friendly church where people care about each other and try to provide a quality program of ministry for the church family, the community and the world. Its congregation is growing and its ministry expanding as the neighborhood develops and changes, from a sanctuary that has held worship since 1860 to Friday mornings of knitting, Sunday nights with the youth, and hands-on work with families in Richwood, children in Camden and a school in Haiti.