A Guide to the churches of the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference of the United Methodist Church
This site is not affiliated with or commissioned by the United Methodist Church or the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference.
The beginnings of Methodism in Oklahoma started with the Indian churches. The first formal meeting as a conference was held at Riley's Chapel in Park Hill, Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, on October 23, 1844.[[1]] In November 19, 1906, the Indian Mission Conference officially became the Oklahoma Conference and the Indian churches were absorbed into the new conference. In 1907, the Indian churches were placed in three districts: Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian District, Creek and Seminole Indian District and Kiowa Indian District. The following year, the Kiowa Indian District was absorbed by the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian District. When the Oklahoma Conference split into the East Oklahoma Conference and West Oklahoma Conference in 1910, the churches of the old Kiowa Indian District were placed in the Lawton District of the West Oklahoma Conference and the other two districts were in the East Oklahoma Conference. After the close of the East Oklahoma Conference on November 8, 1918, twenty-six individuals met to organize a new Indian Mission Conference. By 1919, the Indian churches around Anadarko and Lawton were added to the new conference.[[2]] In 1972, the Indian Mission Conference was changed to Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference.[[3]]
In 1994, the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference celebrated it's Sesquicentennial with a walk from the Cherokee Heritage Center to the original site of Riley's Chapel.
Contributors
Anyone with knowledge of any of these churches is encouraged to contribute to this project. The project originally entailed a digitization project of slides as a way of archiving photos as well as providing access to a historical account of how the churches once looked. A determination was made to collect new photographs of the churches to show the current look of the churches. In the task of obtaining photographs, it was decided that an additional task of mapping the churches should be done. The main reason for this addition is that the churches were not always easy to find.
This project was done as a wiki to allow those with knowledge of any information about the churches to add that information to create an archived history of the church and the conference.
