Biography

Woodlawn United Methodist Church was located at 6150 Jonesboro Road, West Monroe, Louisiana.

The first Protestant services in the area were held in private homes. A building was later constructed to be used as a church on Sunday and as a school during the week. The Woodlawn congregation has its roots in several congregations that met over the years.

The Pine Grove Church is thought to have begun in the 1860s. In 1901, Rev. Inabnet gave an acre of land for the Lapine Methodist church on Charlie Griggs Road, and a church was built in 1903. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, the congregation’s numbers had dwindled. They decided to build a new church in a new location. Land on Highway 34, just west of the Woodlawn School, was purchased. On August 16, 1964, the gray brick church was completed and the congregation of Lapine moved into the Woodlawn Church.

Some of the membership of Woodlawn can be traced to the Sardis (new and old) congregations. Old Sardis was built in 1857. The cemetery of the old church can still be found on Red Cut Road. In 1903, a new church (New Sardis) was built on Ed Rutledge Road on land donated by Benjamin Frank Gewin. As people and businesses moved away, that congregation grew smaller. After the last service at Sardis in May 1931, the congregation joined the Lapine church. The cemetery at the new Sardis location is now known as Rutledge Cemetery. In 1972, the Carroll Social Hall was constructed.

Woodlawn United Methodist Church disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church in May 2023.

Source: Timothy Hebert, “The Historical Register of the Louisiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church,” (Louisiana: Louisiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, 2004), page MO-90.

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