Our church was first founded in 1830 as the Methodist Episcopal Church. It became Canaanville Chapel in 1850 and then Canaanville Methodist Episcopal Church when it moved to its present location in 1899. In 1939 it became Canaanville Methodist Church and in 1968, the Canaanville United Methodist Church; Services are Sunday at 9 a.m. and Sunday School is at 10 a.m. Service at Stewart is at 10 a.m.
We are a praying church with powerful prayer warriors. We have a prayer alert system that notifies our prayer team of prayer concerns. We are a Spirit Filled church that believes in the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Canaanville United Methodist Church is a small country church doing great things! Generally, about 20 people attend church each Sunday. We also live stream our service for people at home. Facebook says we are reaching about 500 people. Our congregation is somewhat diverse. We have carpenters, nurses, professors, students, secretaries, teachers, social workers, fire fighters, domestic engineers; old, young and young at heart.
Services are Sunday at 9 a.m. at Canaanville and 10:15 at Stewart. Adult Sunday School is at 9:30 at Stewart and 10 at Canaanville. At Canaanville, following our children’s moment during worship, children preschool through the 12 grades are able to attend Children’s Church.
Teen Ministry - During the school year, several of our teens get together with their friends for Bible Study and fellowship at Federal Hocking High School and attend church together on Sunday mornings. They have been studying local history and doing service projects together. For 3 years they organized a community Summer Bible School in stewart.
We support several mission projects both locally and globally including missionaries in Myanmar, Thailand, and Costa Rica. Our children collect “Noisy Change” during Advent and Lent, supporting Heifer International and local ministries.
We have friends in Nicaragua both from our work with Compassion International and through mission work several members do at Rancho Ebenezer in Niquinohomo, Nicaragua. One little girl we sponsored from the time she was 6 years old graduated from the Compassion program, and has finished her degree in Nursing and Graphic Arts. We bought her a computer and a stethoscope for her Nursing courses. We still keep in touch with her and her dad. In the past, several members’ families have supported other Compassion children.
Immigration Ministries - While working in Nicaragua, we developed special relationships with several of our Nicaraguan friends. Members of our church have sponsored several of these people to seek asylum in the United States. We recently helped a Nicaraguan family to get political asylum and helped them to settle into a home in Indianapolis. We have provided appliances, bedding, warm clothing, attorney fees and other necessary expenses to support their integration into our society.
Task Force on United Methodist Immigration Ministries of Ohio - Several of our members are active members of this organization. This group successfully petitioned the West/East Ohio Conferences to recognize our group and to have a special Advance offering each year to support our work. We have a fund to help immigrants pay the $100 application fee to apply for asylum.
Good Works - We support the Athens Good Works Homeless Shelter by collecting food and supplies several times per year. Our church and many of its members support Good Works financially. Partnering with the Amesville Cooperative Parish, we have served meals at the Good Works Friday Night Supper. We support “take home food” projects at three local elementary schools and fill “blessing boxes” with food in four local communities.
We support and volunteer at the Federal Valley Resource Center, a Community Center in Stewart.
We have an Emergency Response Team, which can respond to tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and other disasters. We purchased an eighteen-foot tool trailer and, with financial help from our members and the Foothills District UMC, equipped it with tools and supplies. We recently donated the trailer to the Foothills/Hocking River District, so that it is now available to the whole District for emergency response. We have participated in three relief projects, one in Marietta after the Ohio River flood there, one in North Carolina helping to reconstruct a home destroyed by Hurricane Matthew and one in Dayton doing tornado cleanup.
We participate in a program called “Connecting Neighbors” which helps us prepare for disasters individually, within our church and in the community. One of our members is the Disaster Relief Coordinator for our Foothills/Hocking River District. He is certified to teach both the Connecting Neighbors program and the ERT Basic Training Program.
We have contributed hundreds of school kits, hygiene kits and flood buckets for the Festival of Sharing and donated heavily to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) which assists communities following natural disasters. Last year, we contributed 18 flood buckets, 31 hygiene kits, and 21 school kits to UMCOR.
We are a warm and welcoming congregation working hard to follow the Greatest Commandment given by Jesus Christ, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27) We are friendly and outgoing and always welcome new members. We follow a Safe Sanctuary policy to make sure children are safe at all times.
If you are looking for a small church where you will be welcomed, appreciated, can make new friends, and find ways to serve the Lord, we are the church for you. As stated befoe, we Live Stream the Canaanville services on Facebook at 9 a.m. on Sundays or later if you want to watch the recorded service. If you are just visiting the Athens area, stop in on Sunday morning; we welcome visitors!
We are proud to introduce our new pastor, Sarah Lowden. Please check out her bio.
Revised 11/20/25