One of Edgehill’s early home groups.
“To be Christian in the world is to struggle to help the weak links for the sake of the strength of the whole chain.”
Our History
The Rev. Bill Barnes and 12 charter members founded Edgehill United Methodist Church in 1966 in the historically black Edgehill neighborhood.
Since the beginning, Edgehill UMC has sought to follow Jesus out of the church and into the streets. It has long stood “on the edge” of many important social issues. Edgehill was the first significantly integrated church in Nashville and the first United Methodist church in the southeast to join the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN), the network of churches open and affirming to LGBTQ people in the UMC. Moreover, Edgehill’s work with the LGBTQ community in the 1970s was used as the “blueprint” for RMN’s work.
Whether it was civil rights, housing, homelessness, incarceration, LGBTQ inclusion, or serving victims of AIDS and their families in the early days of the epidemic, Edgehill has worked for justice and the inclusion of all of God’s children for 50+ years.
Learn more about Edgehill UMC’s history in the books, Pushing Life: The Story of Edgehill’s First Quarter Century 1966-1991, ed. by Alice Cobb and To Love a City A Congregation's Long Love Affair with Nashville's Inner City, by Bill Barnes. Contact us for copies!
Church on the edge since 1966
