A Long Walk Down Madison Avenue
The story of Greenwood United Methodist Church is told in three buildings and a procession. The congregation was established in 1849 in a modest structure at the corner of Pearl and Meridian Streets in the young town of Greenwood. By 1887 that first home had been outgrown, and the members moved into a brick building at Brewer and Broadway Streets, where they remained for the next seventy-seven years. When that building too became too small, hundreds of Greenwood families walked in 1965 from Broadway to the present location on Madison Avenue, carrying their Bibles, hymnals, baptismal bowls, communion chalice, and stained glass windows with them. The building was new, but the calling of the congregation was not.
Today the church at 525 North Madison Avenue remains what it has been for more than 175 years: a house of prayer for all people, in the words of Isaiah 56:7 that frame the church history page. The motto, "At the heart of the community, with the community in our hearts," appears across the church's printed materials, and the diversity that defines the city of Greenwood is visible in the pews every Sunday.
Two Languages, One Sanctuary
Worship on Sunday mornings takes two forms at Greenwood United Methodist Church, both in the same sanctuary on Madison Avenue. The principal English-language service is a traditional Sunday morning worship at 10:15 AM. Before it, at 9:00 AM, the Good News Sunday School gathers for adult Bible study.
In 2013 the church welcomed thirty-seven Mizo (Burmese) families, part of a wave of refugees from the Mizoram region of northeast India and Myanmar who resettled in central Indiana. That group has since grown to more than four hundred members, and the church now hosts a Mizo worship service every Sunday afternoon in the same building. For Greenwood UMC, the partnership with the Mizo community is one of the defining marks of the congregation, a tangible expression of the "open hearts, open minds, and open doors" language the church uses to describe itself.
Services are livestreamed on the church's YouTube channel, and recordings of recent Sunday services and Wednesday Bible studies (currently working through the Gospel of John) are posted for later viewing.
An Organ Without Pipes
On Sunday mornings the congregation sings to the accompaniment of one of the most unusual instruments in Indiana. In 2019 Director of Music Drew Worthen designed and built a four-manual Hauptwerk organ that is the largest of its kind in the state and among the largest in the world. Hauptwerk is a software platform that uses high-resolution audio samples of real pipe organs, and the Greenwood instrument draws on recordings of more than twenty different pipe organs from around the globe, totaling more than two terabytes of raw uncompressed audio. That audio is routed through fifty-six discrete channels and amplified at roughly twenty thousand watts, an installation that is able to, in Worthen's words, "quite literally shake the building" and reproduce the full sixteen-hertz-to-twenty-one-kilohertz range of the original instruments.
Worthen, who directs the church's entire music program, led the project with support from the congregation, and the organ has attracted attention from organists and builders around the world for its ability to perform the entire organ repertoire and for the modest budget on which it was completed. The instrument is heard every Sunday morning and is featured in the church's concert series.
The chapel at Greenwood UMC also has its own pipe organ, a small three-rank Wicks instrument that Worthen recovered and rebuilt during the pandemic after tracing it back to its original home at Butler University, where he had been a graduate student. Sarah Sabatino, the church's pianist and choral accompanist, plays a central role in that story and in the chapel services.
The Chancel Choir and the Handbell Choir
Music at Greenwood UMC is built around three ensembles that rehearse on Thursday evenings. The Chancel Choir, an all-ages group open to anyone who wants to sing, rehearses at 7:00 PM and performs a wide repertoire throughout the year as an integral part of Sunday worship. The handbell ensemble, which rehearses at 6:00 PM the same evening, plays on a three-octave set of Schulmerich handbells and handchimes and performs regularly in services and at special events. New ringers are always welcome, and the set has room to expand.
The church also hosts a concert series that brings musicians from across the region to the Madison Avenue sanctuary, often taking advantage of the Hauptwerk organ's unusual capabilities.
Shepherd's Table on Tuesdays
Every Tuesday from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM, the church's kitchen opens its doors for Shepherd's Table, a free lunch program that began in 2012 as an extension of the congregation's existing kitchen ministry. The name comes from John 21, where the risen Jesus instructs the disciples to "Feed my sheep," and the meals served include a main course, side, salad, roll, and dessert. The dining room is open during the full two hours, and carry-out is available from noon to 1:00 PM with a limit of two meals per guest. When other Johnson County churches and groups serve midweek meals, the Shepherd's Table calendar links to the Johnson County Community Meal Calendar so that no one in the area goes hungry simply because it is the wrong day of the week.
The Full Family of Scouting
Greenwood UMC is one of a small number of churches that serve as home to the full family of Scouting programs chartered through the Boy Scouts of America. Cub Scout Pack 260 is a Family Pack that welcomes boys and girls in kindergarten through fifth grade, regardless of their school, and meets most Mondays at 6:30 PM in Suter Hall. Scouts-BSA Troop 263 is a male troop for youth ages eleven to eighteen and meets Mondays from 7:00 to 8:30 PM in the church's Scouts Building. A Venturing Crew rounds out the program for older youth ages fourteen to twenty-one, focused on high-adventure outdoor activities. Even during the pandemic year of 2020 the units kept going, shifting to online meetings, virtual merit badge counselors, and carefully distanced outdoor trips that included a twenty-one-mile backpacking trek in the Deem Wilderness near Lake Monroe.
The GUMC Preschool
Sharing the same campus is the Greenwood United Methodist Church Preschool, a Christ-centered early childhood program that has long been a part of the congregation's ministry to the wider city. Directed by Brittany Ryan, the preschool serves two-, three-, and four-year-olds in classes that meet from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM Monday through Friday, with before- and after-care available from 7:00 to 8:00 AM and from 3:00 to 5:00 PM. The program is built around hands-on learning in art, music, literature, letter and number readiness, creative movement, cooking, perceptual skills, and motor coordination, in an environment that teaches the practices of Christian community - love, sharing, caring, forgiveness, song, prayer, cooperation, and kindness - alongside the academic foundations of preschool. Tuition options include full day, four days, three days, or three half-days, and a Pre-K class is also offered for four-year-olds.
United Women in Faith
The women's ministry at Greenwood UMC is organized under the new name of United Women in Faith, formerly United Methodist Women, and follows that organization's mission of connecting and nurturing women through Christian spiritual formation, leadership development, creative fellowship, and education so that they can inspire, influence, and impact local and global communities. The local circle hosts mission markets, holiday cookie and bread sales, and a cafe lunch supporting women-led non-profit vendors, with proceeds going to the mission work of the church's women.
Bible Study, Sunday School, and Learning
Education and formation are woven through the weekly rhythm at Greenwood UMC. The Good News Sunday School meets at 9:00 AM each Sunday for Bible study, and Senior Pastor Joshua Lemons leads a Wednesday evening Bible study at 6:30 PM that the church livestreams on YouTube and posts as recordings for later viewing. Both are currently working through the Gospel of John. Lay leaders and small groups provide additional opportunities for Christian formation during the week, and the church publishes a seasonal newsletter, "The Spire," with announcements, calendars, and reflections for the congregation and the wider Greenwood community.
Getting Involved and Giving
Visitors and newcomers will find Sunday morning worship at 10:15 AM and the Mizo service in the afternoon, with Sunday school for adults at 9:00 AM. The office is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM, and the building is on North Madison Avenue, easily reached from the rest of the city. Those who want to support the ministries of the church can give online through the church's giving platform, and volunteer opportunities are listed with the donation materials, particularly around Shepherd's Table and the preschool. Greenwood United Methodist Church is at 525 North Madison Avenue in Greenwood, Indiana, and can be reached at 317-881-1653.