CENTRE WELLINGTON – The United Church of Canada is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2025, and the Advertiser will be featuring local United churches/congregations throughout the year.
The United Church of Canada is the largest Protestant denomination in Canada. It ministers to over a million people in about 2,500 congregations.
The United Church was inaugurated on June 10, 1925 in Toronto, when the Methodist Church, Canada, the Congregational Union of Canada, and 70 percent of The Presbyterian Church in Canada entered into a union. Also joining was the small General Council of Union Churches, centred largely in Western Canada.
The movement for church union began with the desire to coordinate ministry in the vast Canadian northwest and for collaboration in overseas missions.
Congregations in Indigenous communities from each of the original denominations were an important factor in the effort toward church union.
A celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Union will be held June 8 at Melville United Church in Fergus, with 11 churches participating. “Remembering the Past and Building for the Future” will be the focus of the day’s service and celebrations.
Mimosa
Mimosa United Church is located at 5980 Wellington Road 26, just up the hill from the original hamlet of Mimosa, a busy crossroads community now lost to time, that not that long ago boasted two additional churches, a school, post office and blacksmith. Only the church remains.
The area has been a place of European gathering since 1864 when predominantly Gaelic speaking pioneers erected the Balmsville Meeting House on the northeast corner of farmland owned by Neil and Margaret MacDonald, recent emigrants from the Isle of Islay (off the west coast of Scotland.)
The use of the land held one condition: “that all were welcome and had equal voice before God,” although only men over 21 years could vote on church governance.
An adjoining lot was purchased from Peter McGregor in 1884 for the building of a formal Presbyterian Church. Its corner stone was laid on July 24, 1885, and the building was completed by Charles Castani the following year, with an interior crafted by Belwood carpenter H. MacDonald. Large sheds for horses and buggies were added in 1892.
From 1890 until Union, Mimosa Presbyterian was jointly pastored with Belwood Presbyterian.
At the bottom of the hill on which the Presbyterian Church stood, was a stone Methodist church on a three-point circuit with sister meeting houses: Bethal Methodist Church (known as the Brown Church) and the Stone Methodist Church, with a parsonage and cemetery for the charge located beside Stone Church.
In 1897 it was decided that Mimosa would move to another circuit, with Stone Church continuing with Everton, and later Rockwood Methodist Churches all of whom joined together at the time of Union in 1925.
As the rural population shifted over the turn of the last century, Brown Church and the Mimosa Methodists saw a decline in membership. The Brown Church closed in 1926, and its congregation joined Mimosa Presbyterian, with its building being sold to Hillsburgh United Church where it continued in use until 1968.
Union brought much change to the Mimosa Presbyterians, now joined in service with the Brown Church Methodists and additionally, the former congregation of the Mimosa Discipline Church, whose building just outside the hamlet had been lost to fire.
The different faith communities did not fully embrace their common future until the Mimosa Methodist Church was closed in 1938. When its building was demolished, the windows, pews, a pulpit, chairs and a furnace were saved and incorporated into an extensive remodelling of the interior of the newly constituted Mimosa United Church, formerly Mimosa Presbyterian Church.
That same year the men of the community came together to hand excavate a basement under the stone United Church, creating space for an extensive Sunday School and regular Church dinners.
The church became the central gathering place for the communities’ rural families. In 1974, the basement was again remodelled, a well dug and an addition built that included a kitchen, washroom, meeting room and study. In 1979, the interior was painted, and new lights were added along with a large lighted cross.
In time, Mimosa United, Marsville United and St. John’s United in Orton amalgamated to become the Orton Pastoral Charge.
Mimosa United Church’s congregation has seen many changes over the years.
As automobiles became the preferred mode of travel, the large shed constructed in 1892 to house horses and buggies became a community event centre, hosting the annual ‘Strawberry Social and Variety Night’ every August. The shed was taken down in 2024 after 132 years of service.
Thirty-three Ministers have been associated with the church since 1850, many of renown. In 1948, Rev. Erla Currey came to the charge. She was one of the first of two women ordained in the United Church of Canada. The current Minister is Rev. Jeff Davison, who has been with the church since 2010. He leads services on Sundays at 10am.
The board of stewards updates and maintains the church and grounds, which see much use during the week. The church holds a dinner/lecture series each Wednesday evening in April and November, which brings in the community for a meal and a lecture on various topics.
Local 4-H clubs also use the building regularly and the church supports food banks in Erin and Rockwood and helps prepare gift baskets for local folks in need.
