Our church has had a combined Christian presence on the North Fork of over 770 years.

We are Better Together.

Meet the Pastor - Pastor Ken Bohler is a dynamic minister who brings his love and enthusiasm for the gospel of Jesus Christ to his sermons. Pastor Ken’s warm personality, genuine caring for the community and love for the Lord enable him to easily connect with people of all ages.

Why our  churches have merged - When the churches were first planted on the North Fork over 150 years ago, the mode of transportation was either by horse and buggy or by foot. To assure that the journey would not be too much of an undertaking, many churches were placed approximately 5 miles apart from each other. This was also during the time when the Methodist Episcopal Church movement was sweeping the country and approximately 20% of the post revolutionary population claimed affiliation with an ME Church.

Over the years, family sizes decreased, resulting in fewer people attending church.  Starting 40 years ago, the UMC congregations on the North Fork of Long Island, realizing the decline in attendance, started to discuss ways to help our congregations flourish. As the congregations began to reach critical levels, the probability of the churches dying became a reality. We had to come up with a way to keep the message of Jesus Christ alive on the North Fork. We understood that we could not do this by ourselves.

After a time of visioning, a lot of prayer, and A WHOLE BUNCH of listening for God’s word, a movement lead by the laity of two local congregations became the first step of a new reality. In May 2014, the lay leadership brought a vision to the congregations, who made the difficult decision to merge the two congregations (Cutchogue and Southold) into the North Fork United Methodist Church. In May of 2015, after much prayer and meditation, the newly formed congregation and the Greenport congregation joined together.  In May of 2016, Orient UMC joined the NFUMC family to form the Body of Christ we are today.  Our goal was to build a newer and more centrally located facility to meet the needs of  today. On June 16th, 2019, we consecrated our new building in Southold.  Originally four separate churches, the joining of the congregations has strengthened the Methodist community within the North Fork. But most importantly, It allowed our message of God’s grace through the salvation found in Jesus Christ to remain alive.

The message could NOT and would NOT be denied.

As a result of the merger, we have experienced an overall increase in all of the areas of church participation. This has led us to become more efficient at meeting the needs of the congregation, the community that we live in, as well as the world that surrounds us, for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

In August of 2022, the congregation voted to amend our name to The Vine at North Fork United Methodist Church. This is a reminder to us that for everything we do, to be fruitful, we must remain in the presence of Christ. -  I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. - John 15:5