History

On October 17, 1937, fifty-nine dedicated worshipers gathered in the old Beach Theater in Jacksonville Beach to form Rising Tide Methodist Church – the forerunner to today’s Beach United Methodist. 

The original church Sanctuary is today’s Chapel and it remains a popular site of weddings, teaching events and weekly church activities.  This unique and historic structure of undersea mined coquina rock stands as the first house of worship built after the reunification of the Methodist Church in the late 1930s, and is a stately reminder of the former rural beaches community.

Today’s BEACH (Beach United Methodist) is a vibrant and active arm of Christ in the greater Beaches communities – serving Mayport, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, Ponte Vedra Beach, as well as Jacksonville Beach and the area of Jacksonville just west of the intercostal waterway.  The church averages more than 2,100 in worship attendance each weekend on it’s nearly three square block campus, and lists over 3,000 on the church roll. 

An aggressive building program was completed in 2006, and included a new education and learning center as well as a new 30,000 sq. ft. Family Life Center and auditorium.

One of the largest United Methodist churches in the Florida Conference, BEACH has more than 55 ministries serving the local community and annually sends mission teams into the local community, as well as to Jamaica, Panama, Costa Rica and Africa (Uganda), where we support permanent mission projects.

In 2000, BEACH launched a remote campus in Ponte Vedra Beach which today is Ponte Vedra United Methodist.  BEACH assisted in planting a church in San Ramon, Costa Rica, and currently is working diligently to launch a large, healthy non-denominational church in Jacksonville in 2012 to be known as The Church of Eleven22.