For 22 years, a building in the area has been selected, miniaturized, cast in resin and packaged as a little bit of celebration — of Christmas cheer and Washington’s history.

This year is no exception. The Washington Area Historic Foundation has released its 2017 Christmas ornament, this one celebrating one of the oldest churches in the area: Asbury United Methodist Church.

“We feel honored to be honored, to be recognized,” said Asbury United Methodist Church Pastor Jim Reed. “We feel like our heritage, our history, has propelled us to our present.”

For 160 years, the Asbury United Methodist congregation has gathered in this sanctuary, built in 1857.

“That was one of the reasons we selected this church,” said WAHF Vice President and ornament committee chairman Dee Congleton.

But the church’s history does not start with its building, according to Reed. The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, ordained Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke, who became the first Methodist bishops in America, traveling the new country to share the new denomination.

“Even though we’re 160 years in this building, the ministry goes back to the 1700s,” Reed said. “They have a claim that Asbury picked out this point (for a church).”

The church bell comes from the Methodist church in Pinetown that was dissolved in 1925. It is said to have come by oxcart from Pinetown to its new home on Asbury Church Road, Reed said.

Reed said the ornament helps with the church’s visibility, an ongoing theme as the church continues to expand in a variety of ways. Land adjacent has been turned into places that feed both the body and the soul with Ruby’s Garden and a prayer labyrinth. The church has been instrumental in creating partnerships to provide summer feeding programs for school-age children in the county and continues to look for ways to expand the service.

“We’re trying to expand that summer feeding ministry, because when (children are) in school, they get breakfast; they get lunch. When they’re not, they may not eat,” Reed said. “Hospitality is our kind of understanding of who we are. It’s part of our identity.”

“It’s a very welcoming church,” Congleton said.

Asbury United Methodist Church joins the ranks of other historic structures commemorated by WAHF ornaments in past years. The first ornament featured the Singleton Primitive Baptist Church, the old Beaufort County Courthouse and the old City Hall building. Since, still-existing structures such as the Turnage Theatre, old Tayloe Hospital and Washington Civic Center have been selected, as have buildings that only exist in memory and photographs: the Bug House, DeMille House, former John Small School and the old Washington High School among them.

The ornaments have become collector’s items for many; Congleton said she’s had calls from people desperate to fill in missing years in their collections, and several times, WAHF has had to order second runs of popular ornaments. She said WAHF welcomes donations of extra or unwanted ornaments in the collection.

The ornaments can be purchased for $25 at the North Carolina Estuarium, the Coffee Caboose on MacNair Street and through the church office. To purchase an ornament through the church, call Cindy Carawan at 252-945-3482.