We began in 1881 at a location on Third Hill Rd. in this beautiful rural setting, as a United Brethren in Christ Church — a denomination that believed as long as we agreed on the essentials of Biblical faith, minor theological differences shouldn't prevent unity.

In 1889, the national conference of the church became divided over an attempt to force a change in the constitution of the church and reverse the firm ban on secret societies which had been put into place in 1814 and justified in 1826 by an incident in which a whistleblower on the Freemasons was murdered by fellow fraternity members.

The resulting division created two denominations of the same name, the lesser one led by Milton Wright, the father of famed inventors Orville and Wilbur. This smaller movement became known as the Old Constitution Church.

Because our church had just begun, we remained with the more stable New Constitution Church. Both groups carried the same name until 1946, when the New Constitution Church merged with the Evangelical Association, creating the Evangelical United Brethren Church.

The life of the new denomination was short, due to the long association between the leadership of the EUB Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1968, a vote was called to merge the EUB Church with the ME Church and form the United Methodist Church.

With the passage of that vote, there arose a dispute locally regarding the affiliation of the Mt. Carmel church. Our fellowship's founders decided that keeping the original identity of the church was important enough that a division occurred, and they returned to the Old Constitution Church — now the only United Brethren in Christ denomination.

The Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church continues the history of the original church, while we carry on our historical affiliation with the UB denomination as Mt. Carmel United Brethren in Christ, founded in 1969.