This Week in Texas Methodist History October 9 Steve McKinney Celebrates Unity of Methodism with Poem, October 1939 Samuel Stephen (Steve) McKenney (1876-1976) was one of the most prominent members of the Texas Conference during the first half of the 20th century. He was born to a large family in Virginia with poor prospects for advancement but was sent to Baltimore to learn cabinet making. It is good for Texas that he did not stick with that craft. An insurance company in Baltimore hired him and sent him to Texas. He joined the Texas Confence in 1901 and received more prominent appointments. He is remembered in Houston as the founder of Grace Methodist and pastor of St. Paul’s. He also served Tyler Marvin, Port Arthur Temple, First Wichita Falls, First Longview, First Galveston, First Marshall and presiding elder of three districts. He was also a delegate to the Uniting Conference of 1939 in Kansas City in which the Methodist Church was created by the merger of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Protestant Church, and the Methodist Episcopasl Church South. One of the preachers at the 1939 Conference was Bishop Edwin Holt Hughes of the MEC. His theme was the new unity of Methodists. McKenney was so impressed that he celebrated the sermon with a poem. I will not reproduce all of The Methodists are One People here but some parts of it are really interesting. It begins Know all people by these presents The Methodists are one. Our Uniting task is finished though our work is just begun Widely scattered and divided, all our plans were yet undone Through years of separation till we were at last made one. McKenney goes on through four more stanzas. McKenney was blessed with long life. Even after retirement, he served at Houston Epworth. Eventually he moved to Moody House in Galveston where he died at age 89.