About Galilee >Galilee History >

Galilee History

In the Spring of 1959, Reverend Leonard Hazelwood and Broad Run resident Dean Smith established the church school that was to become Galilee United Methodist Church. October 26, 1960, the Methodist Board of Mission purchased five lots in Broad Run Farms for the sum of $10,000. November 13, with Rev. Mayou as Pastor and the Lord's blessings, Galilee was chartered with 36 adult members that included current members June and John Fearnow and Barbara and Earl Foltz. The house that originally served as the church and parsonage was purchased in 1962 for $22,350. Although the budget of $1,155 was small by today's standards, the men of the church went on "midnight rides" to call upon members to help pay bills when times were tough.

Galilee member Donald Hagerich, who was also an architect, designed the original church. Envisioned as a boat sailing the tides on the Sea of Galilee, the design was accepted in February of 1963. Official groundbreaking occurred June 28, 1964 with the first worship service held Easter Sunday, April 18, 1965. As the church membership began to grow and flourish, A Child's Place Preschool was begun, classrooms 6, 7, and 8 were added and a new piano was purchased at $25 per key. Galilee soon became a place that welcomed the community including scouts, social groups, and the Broad Run Civic Association. In the 1980's, the church continued to grow. Our new pastor, Rev. Tim Gerde arrived, and an organ was added to the music ministry. The Wesley Ringers bell choir, under the direction of Ron Dyer, performed at the White House. It soon became clear that the lack of space was limiting our ability to serve the community and welcome new members. In 1993, we began our original building program called "Growing Galilee" with commitments from 109 families.

September 10, 1995, our second groundbreaking ceremony began with the goal of constructing the current sanctuary. Pastor Wayne Snead arrived July 7, 1996 and the first service in our new sanctuary was held November 10, 1996. Our steeple soon became a beacon in the community and the Lord brought us many new friends and members. In 1997, we began the second phase of our building program, "Growing Together," with goals that included financing the construction, expanding our ministries, and making way for our third phase of building an education wing. We were blessed with over 140 family pledges to support this second phase.

On September 7, 1997, Galilee expanded to two Sunday Services; one at 9:00am and one at 10:30 am.  Growth in attendance and membership continued, especially as Loudoun County itself was booming. With the increase in people, it was obvious Galilee was going to need more space.

In January of 2005, Galilee dedicated the gym, education, administration and music room of the building, expanding the useable space at Galilee to about 40,000 square feet.  Galilee then reached out to the community to increase community activities in the building, to include sports in the gym, and increased meeting space for homeowners associations, recovery programs, and extensive scouting activities.  A Child’s Place preschool moved into the new education wing during the week.  During this time, Galilee added to the pastoral staff, adding a fulltime associate pastor, Sarah Calvert.

On October 9, 2006, Galilee took a step in faith, and began an offsite worship service to serve the Leisure World community, in Lansdowne, Virginia.  Then, in July of 2007,  the Leisure World community welcomed Matt Sergent as their site pastor. Matt is a full-time associate pastor of Galilee, with primary pastoral responsibility to the Leisure World community.

Our mission at Galilee is to help build deeply committed Christians, through connecting, teaching and serving.  We don’t always know where God is sending us on this mission, but we’d love to have you join us on the journey!