Our Local Church History
On August 8, 1948 a series of revival meetings began in Bowdoinham in an unused Univeralist Church built during the 1880's. The preacher was Rev. Harland C. Joyce, then Pastor of the Richmond Nazarene Church and Mr. Nelson Brown of Farifield, Maine as a song evangelist. With the help of members of the Richmond Nazarene Church and from other Nazarene churches in the area, interest grew as each meeting went by until at the end of the ten-day meeting the building was nearly filled with many from the local community attending. After a while the meetings organized into a church. By 1955 the home adjacent to the church was purchased as a parsonage and Rev. Harland C. Joyce resigned the Richmond Church to come to Bowdoinhm as full time pastor in 1955. He served as Pastor until 1985. From 1985 until 1992 Rev. Robert Hill was pastor before leaving to pastor the Watkins Glen, NY Church of the Nazarene. In 1993 Rev. Daniel B. Joyce, son of Harland was asked by the church board to return home and serve as pastor.