Waynesville United Methodist Church began in 1833 as a quest - the quest of one man to find a preacher.  Wilson Tilley and his wife, Elizabeth, had established a farm about five miles south of Waynesville in Pulaski County, Missouri.

Tilley had grown up in Tennessee.  As a young man, he found himself drawn to the slave religious gatherings.  Listening to their spirituals and preaching, he was converted to Christ.  Later he joined the Presbyterians.  As a devout Presbyterian, he did what he could to meet the spiritual needs of his growing family; yet, he longed for a church home for his children and neighbors.  Here in Pulaski County, two churches were just beginning to hold services, but neither of them was near the Tilley farm, so in 1833 he rode out to look for a preacher.

Wilson Tilley's quest ended in Bolivar where he found a Methodist circuit rider willing to serve the Waynesville area.  It is unclear who he was, but the important thing is that he came.  And thus the Methodist Church in Pulaski County began.

That first service was held under a large elm tree across the road from the Tilley home.  Twelve families attended.  Each month the circuit rider would return, and a couple of years later, another circuit rider took over the route.  And so it went until the Civil War. Services were interrrupted during the War Between the States, and Tilley died in 1864, a civilian casualty of that conflict.

After the Civil War...

At the war's end his widow, Elizabeth, saw to it that the church services resumed.   This time members met in the Mount Gibson School House.  The church was called the Methodist Episcopal Church South.

Just like today, the county then was growing.  In 1875 a Methodist church organized in Waynesville proper.  Mount Gibson became a satellite to it, its pulpit supplied by a pastor on the Waynesville circuit until 1921, when Mount Gibson closed and many of its members gravitated to the Waynesville church.  The Waynesville Methodists built their original one-room white frame church building in 1887 and over the years additions were added.

1940's - 1960's

By the 1940's it was time to build again.  A brick structure was erected in 1945 in downtown Waynesville (what is now the Korean Baptist Church.)  The stained glass window from behind the pulpit of the old church was carefully installed in the new structure, to link the past with the present.

As events unfolded in the years following World War II, the community became vitally tied to the military and the needs of its families. 

1960's - 1990's

By the 1960's, the problem of a growing church again began to surface.  A descendant of Wilson Tilley wrote:

"Our Sunday school space is woefully inadequate; our educational program with our young people suffers because they cannot be adequately seated... Let's face the issue and quit kidding ourselves.  We need an educational building sufficiently large to accommodate future needs of the next 10 to 20 years.  A church does not stand still; either it grows or it falls, and the fact that it does not grow, makes it fall... What we do now is making history for those who follow us.  Let it be said of us as I have said of those now gone, 'They built wisely and firmly.'" - Dru Pippin, 1961

Because of the foresight of our predecessors, the Waynesville United Methodist Church is the oldest church still meeting in Pulaski County and is still growing. The first structure on our current site was built in 1984.   In the past four years alone, the congregation has grown about 14 per year.  Planning for new construction began in early 1998.

Groundbreaking for the new Sanctuary, August 29th, 1999

Our newest addition, completed in June of 2000, includes a new sanctuary, choir room, and a multi-purpose room.  This addition, which cost in excess of $700,000, was paid for in less than 6 years. At our annual Independence Day celebration, on July 2nd, 2005, we attached the mortgage note to a rocket and blew it up. Just as Wilson Tilley dreamed of a church home for his family, we at the Waynesville United Methodist Church continue to dream and to plan for the spiritual needs of our community.

Our Newest Addition