CENTER GROVE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

CENTER GROVE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH. Located in 1990 at 3140 Brunskill Road. Early English immigrants, often miners, settled in CENTER GROVE between 1835 and 1855. While many attended church services in ROCKDALE, others felt the travel distance was too great. Acting on their feelings, the settlers founded Center Grove Methodist Church in 1852. A brick building erected on the site was used until 1886 when the present church was constructed.

The 1987 Dubuque City Directory listed 3140 Brunskill Road.

In 2023 a total of 83 Iowa churches belonging to the United Methodist Church left the denomination over a split on same-six marriage and ordaining openly LGBTQ clergy. The denomination has repeatedly upheld bans on both, but others defied them. In 2023 the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church approved a new vision that allowed Methodist ministers to host same-sex marriages and made way for gay clergy to serve without fear of church charges.

Conservatives then launched a new Global Methodist Church where they were determined to maintain and enforce the bans. Across the United States, 3,755 churches left the denomination including the 83 in Iowa. The Iowa conference then voted to allow the 83 church with 11% of the state's total Methodists to split off and join the new denomination or become independent. In the Pictured Rock District, including Dubuque, the churches splitting of included Center Grove United Methodist Church, GRANDVIEW AVENUE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, and ROCKDALE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH. (1)

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Source:

1. "Here are the 83 Iowa Churches Leaving the United Methodist Church over the LBGTQ Disagreements," Des Moines Register, May 24, 2023