A Westmoreland church is celebrating 200 years of religious services in the community.

Lowell United Methodist Church held a bicentennial celebration Sunday recognizing the history of the church itself, as well as its surroundings.

"This church is Lowell. This is what's left of Lowell, and it's a great thing to have left,” said Ron Klopfanstein, president of the Westmoreland Historical Society.

Services began in the hamlet back in 1820 and have continued in numerous buildings since. After the initial church was sold, another took its place. That structure was then torn down to make way for a third one in 1895, which burnt down in 1930.

"The bell melted, and they sold pieces of it in order to build this building. We do have one piece left in the church,” says Anne-Louise Bailey, a longtime member of the church and the pastor’s wife.

The current church has been standing since, and was home to Sunday’s celebration.

"We're celebrating the fact that our church is still in existence, and we intend to keep it in existence, for indefinitely in the future,” said Rev. Frederick Bailey.

Celebrations began with a special service in the style of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.

"I dressed and tried to behave like John Wesley, and I also mentioned that all the hymns were written by Charles Wesley, who was the hymn writer and the poet,” the pastor explained.

Afterwards, congregants gathered for the bicentennial program, which included music and historical reflections of the church and the community.

"The history of the Lowell church, the churches that were here, all four of them, is really the history of the hamlet itself. This church has always been the focal point of the hamlet,” Klopfanstein said.

And while there isn’t much left to differentiate Lowell from the rest of the Town of Westmoreland, the church stands as a reminder of a community that continues, two centuries and counting.