DIXFIELD – Two centuries ago, just three years after Dixfield became a town, 10 local people got together to draw up a covenant for the First Congregational Church of Christ, the first church in town.

Now, 200 years later, and after denominational use has changed several times, the Dixfield Congregational Church celebrates its bicentennial.

“It’s a busy, busy, busy little church,” said 40-year member, Vawn Daley. “We’re all different age groups and we all work together as a family.”

Known as the Church on the Hill, the sturdy, wooden building with the Christian symbol of a fish topping the steeple can be seen for miles. Its white clapboard simplicity has New England church written all over it.

The Rev. John Gensel has pastored the church for almost six years.

“We have many young families and those attending have grown from 30 or 35 to 60 or 65 each Sunday,” he said. “We are a welcoming church.”

During this bicentennial year of the covenant – the actual church was completed in 1828 – that busy congregation has held activities ranging from a strawberry festival in June to a harvest fair in September.

Each is meant to reach out to the community.

“The ministry is our worship, but it goes far beyond these walls,” he said.

Women in the church have made at least 200 prayer shawls that have been given to people all over the country, and now Daley and her husband, Hugh, are gathering blankets and sleeping bags to take to a homeless shelter in Lewiston.

This weekend, several major events marking the 200th birthday including a one-act play titled “From Here to There,” which is a funny look at the hereafter, takes place on Saturday night, preceded by a talent show. Earlier in the day, a public chicken barbecue begins at 11 a.m.

Sunday’s service, starting at 10 a.m., includes visits from two of the church’s former pastors, the Rev. Neil Wilson and the Rev. David Dodge, followed by the laying of the cornerstone and burying of a time capsule. The King Hiram Lodge, which includes many members from the Congregational Church, and the Grand Lodge of Maine, will help with the cornerstone.

A free public lasagna luncheon for the community begins after the two events.

In a few weeks, a new stained-glass window featuring a dove of peace will be installed in the highest window above the entry doors. The approximately 2- by 4-foot window will cost $4,500. It is being created by Nel Bernard of Lisbon’s Maine Art Glass Studio. A fundraiser is about to start, and a special dedication is planned for the installation.

The blue, gold, silver and white stained-glass window symbolizes the past and the future of the faith community.

Daley said she began attending the church when she was a teenager.

“I felt welcomed here. It is so family oriented, more now than it used to be. You know you have support if there’s anything going on the family,” she said.

Gensel, who travels 40 miles from his New Vineyard home five or six times a week to the church, was a health care manager before joining the ministry.

“I love it. My heart beats for the church,” he said.

During its long history, the church that began as a Congregational Church, served Universalists, Methodists and Baptists before returning to its denominational roots in 1912. During the Universalist era, in 1856, the bell was installed, and a few years after the Congregationalists regained the church, the Estey pipe organ was installed in 1917. An addition was built in the early 1960s.