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The history of Wesley United Methodist Church, in many respects, reflects both the history of the Vienna community and of Methodism during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Wesley Church’s inception and growth over the last 135 years covers its transformation from a small rural church on a circuit to a congregation serving a densely populated, ethnically diverse community in the metropolitan region of the National Capital area.
Wesley Church’s origins begin after the Civil War when the Vienna community was first formed. Beginning in the early 1850s, this area of Fairfax County experienced an influx of Northerners resettling in the Vienna area because of inexpensive land. By the time of the Civil War, the community’s politics was changing rapidly, with many new arrivals having anti-slavery, abolitionist sentiments. After the Civil War, many locals with Methodist allegiances began worshiping in the old Freedom Hill school house, located close to what is now Tysons Corner. In 1890, former Union Major Orin Hine, a local farmer and real estate businessman, and his wife, Alma, donated land for the erection of a new Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church. The church was completed in less than two years and was affiliated with the Virginia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was later absorbed into the Baltimore Conference of the M.E. Church. In its early years, Wesley Church was on a circuit with other “Northern Methodist” churches that included Crossman Church in Falls Church, Oakton Church, and Wiehle Church, in what is now Reston.
Wesley United Methodist Church
Wesley United Methodist Church
(711 Spring St, SE, Vinnea)
After World War II, Wesley Church became a “stand-alone” church with a separately appointed clergyperson in 1951. The 1950s witnessed a major transformation of the Vienna area with several thousand suburban homes constructed between 1954 and 1962. In response, Wesley Church purchased a new church site in 1954 and completed the first portion of its current church building in 1956. The church’s growth continued, and the church’s current sanctuary and additional educational areas was completed in 1963.
Wesley M.E. Chapel
Wesley M.E. Chapel
(Church Street, Vienna)
The congregation has had a long tradition of mission to both the global Methodist Church and local missions in the Vienna and Fairfax County area. Beginning in 1964, the congregation supported two, full-time missionaries through the Board of Global Missions. From 1968-1972, Wesley Church participated in the National Church’s “Fund for Reconciliation” to address economic and social disparities resulting from racism and segregation in Virginia and the United States.
Rose Window
Viva! Vienna
Sanctuary
On July 1, 2019, Wesley UMC welcomed the congregation of Epiphany United Methodist Church, also of Vienna; and ,on July 1, 2020, welcomed the congregation of Charles Wesley United Methodist Church of McLean. These churches had rich traditions of their own, and blended their traditions into those of Wesley.
Wesley was an early supporter, and continues to be a lead supporter, of the Committee for Helping Others (CHO), an ecumenical effort of churches in the Vienna community to provide support to poor and disadvantaged persons, and has been a designated church partner with public schools in the D.C. area serving economically distressed neighborhoods. This mission outreach has its roots in the very origin of Wesley Church in the 19th century. This tradition of vital witness continues today in Wesley’s outreach and mission to serve a community and world that needs to experience, in action and word, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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