First United Methodist Church of Santa Monica welcomes you to the life of our congregation. You’ll find singles, seniors, families with young children, youth, newly-weds, and a full range of groups, programs and opportunities for worship, study, service and fellowship. We worship at 10 am on Sunday mornings in the Sanctuary. We offer a Preschool & Transitional Kindergarten. View our Preschool page on Yelp or visit our church website for more information. We also serve as a great location for weddings and public and private events, large and small which includes our 3-level underground parking garage across the street.

History
Established in 1875.

On October 15, 1875, a hardware store located on the corner of Fifth Street and Oregon Avenue (now Santa Monica Blvd) became the birthplace of our church, in those days known as the Methodist Episcopal Church. The city of Santa Monica was also just beginning to develop. Plots of land had been purchased and tents dotted the landscape. The Methodists in Santa Monica were a small but determined group who sent out an early cry to the California Conference for a minister to help found their church. The call was answered and the first pastor was sent and gave the historic first sermon on October 15, 1875 in the hardware store. Ours was the first church of any denomination in Santa Monica. Through the years our church’s name has changed from Methodist Episcopal to United Methodist but we proudly retain the designation ‘First.’