A Little History 101 of the United Methodist Church

(or Who is this John Wesley guy and how did the Methodist Church start?)

     Peoples UMC is part of the United Methodist Church. To learn more about Mr. Wesley, the churches beginnings and it's history, we've created this page that'll tell you more about it.

     The United Methodist Church was founded on April 23, 1968, in Dallas, Texas. This new Protestant denomination was created when Lloyd C. Wicke, bishop of The Methodist Church, and Reuben H. Mueller, bishop of The Evangelical United Brethren Church, met at the constituting General Conference (sometimes referred to as the Uniting Conference of the United Methodist Church), and effectively combined their churches into one.

In The Beginning

The United Methodist Church's history can be traced back through the origins of Methodism, a denomination founded by John Wesley in the middle of the eighteenth century. Wesley was born in 1703 to Samuel and Susana Wesley. He later attended Oxford University and was ordained a minister of the Church of England. He and several other students at Oxford created a group devoted not only to scholarly goals, but also to prayer and to aiding the less fortunate. The members of this group were often referred to as "Methodists" by their classmates as a result of the methodical way they went about their religious business.

After graduation, Wesley traveled to America, where he unsuccessfully tried to convert the Native Americans in Georgia. It was at this time that Wesley was introduced to and became quite taken with the pious Moravian religion. Then, on May 24, 1738, John Wesley experienced a religious conversion after attending a prayer meeting held on Aldersgate Street, London. This experience led him to found Methodism in England in 1739. Wesley did not set out to create a new church, but instead began several small faith-restoration groups within the Anglican church called the "United Societies." Soon however, Methodism spread and eventually became its own separate religion, based on the General Rules, when the first conference was held in 1744.

Early American Methodism began when Methodist immigrants traveled to the North American colonies and took the initiative to organize the religion in their new homeland in the 1760's. Among these pioneers were Robert Strawbridge, Philip Embury, and Captain Thomas Webb. Once Methodism got on its feet in the New World, Wesley aided the colonists by dispatching four preachers (Richard Wright, Francis Asbury, Richard Boardman, and Joseph Pilmore) across the Atlantic. A few years later, in 1773, Francis Asbury led the Methodists and held their first conference during which they established groundwork for future church organization and agreed to continue to abide by John Wesley's teachings. Soon, Methodist churches calling themselves the "Methodist Episcopal Church" began to be officially established, first in Leesburg, Virginia, and later in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.

Schisms in Methodism (Spin-off Denominations Originating in Wesleyan Tradition)

After the American Revolution, Wesley appointed Dr. Thomas Coke as head of Methodism in America. Because of the United States' new political independence from Great Britain, Wesley felt it necessary to allow the Americans religious independence as well, and Coke's mission was to oversee the American Methodist movement separately from the English Methodist movement.

From the time of the Revolution until the beginning of the Civil War, the Methodist movement was the most rapidly growing movement of its kind. Then, in 1828, a division occurred resulting in the formation of the "Methodist Protestant Church". Sixteen years later another split occurred between the northern Methodist Episcopal Churches and the southern Methodist Episcopal Churches due to unresolved disagreements on racial issues. This schism led to the southern churches renaming themselves the "Methodist Episcopal Church, South". Around the same time, other such schisms occurred. One of these happened when former slave Richard Allen separated and formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1816. In 1821, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was started. And in 1830, yet another group broke away and started the Methodist Protestant Church.

Soon, several schisms occurred as German-speaking members began to feel the need to establish their own groups. The first of these, the United Brethren in Christ, was founded by Philip William Otterbein, not as a new church, but as a way to renew the faith of German-speaking Methodist settlers in America. However, after the first official meeting in 1789, Otterbein's United Brethren did eventually become its own church with its own book of discipline (introduced in 1815) and constitution (written in 1841 and later amended in 1889). A small group originally belonging to the United Brethren split again, and formed the Republican United Brethren Church. This split was short-lived and the deviant group soon merged into the Christian Union.

The Evangelical Church, on the other hand, was founded by Jacob Albright. The first meetings were held in 1803, and a book of discipline was introduced six years later. In 1816, the church took on the name "The Evangelical Association". Then in 1891, some members of the Evangelical Association left to form the "United Evangelical Church". Thirty-one years later the two groups reunited and renamed themselves "The Evangelical Church".

After the Civil War, the dwindling population of African Americans in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South caused the remaining black members to defect to a new denomination, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (then called the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church).

Other schisms in the Methodist church involved disagreements over Episcopal/non-Episcopal issues. The first to leave over these issues was a group led by James O'Kelley; they became known as the Republican Methodists. Later, the Republican Methodists united with the modern-day United Church of Christ. In the 1880's, the Congregational Methodists emerged out of discord with mainstream Methodist Episcopal policies, as did the Methodist Protestant Church in the 1920's, as well as the Bible Protestant Church (or Fellowship of Fundamental Bible Churches), the Southern Methodists, and the Evangelical Methodists.

Modern American Methodism

In the early twentieth century, American Methodism was again on the rise. By 1913, the Methodist Episcopal Church alone claimed four million members. Additionally, denominations that had previously experienced traumatic schisms began to reunite. In 1922 the Evangelical Association merged with another Evangelical denomination to form the Evangelical Association Similarly, "The Evangelical United Brethren Church" resulted from a union consummated in 1946 of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Church.

On May 10, 1939, the three branches of American Methodism (the Methodist Protestant Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South) reached an agreement to reunite under the name "The Methodist Church". This newly reunited 7.7 million member church prospered on its own for the next twenty-nine years, as did the then-newly reunited Evangelical United Brethren Church. Then, in 1968, bishops of the two churches consulted in the Uniting Conference, and took the necessary steps to combine their churches into what has become the second largest Protestant denomination in America -- The United Methodist Church.

Developments and Changes Since 1968

When The United Methodist Church was created in 1968, it had approximately 11 million members, making it one of the largest Protestant churches in the world. Since its birth, United Methodism has experienced a number of changes in its life and structure. It has become increasingly aware of itself as a world church with members and conferences in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States.

While its membership in Europe and the United States has declined noticeably since 1968, membership in Africa and Asia has grown significantly. An increasing number of women have been admitted to the ordained ministry, appointed to the district superintendency, elected to positions of denominational leadership, and consecrated as bishops. In 1980 Marjorie Matthews was the first woman elected to the Church’s episcopacy.

The Church has endeavored to become a community in which all persons, regardless of racial or ethnic background, can participate in every level of its connectional life and ministry. The Church has been concerned with the faithfulness and vitality of its worship.

It published a hymnal in 1989, which included a new Psalter and revised liturgies for baptism, the Lord’s Supper, weddings, and funerals. Its 1992 General Conference authorized a new Book of Worship. A Spanish language hymnal, Mil Voces Para Celebrar, was published in 1996.

The United Methodist Church represents the confluence of three streams of tradition: Methodism, the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, and The Evangelical Association. With other churches that are also members of the body of Christ, it humbly and gratefully offers up its praise to God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit for creating and sustaining grace. It seeks further grace as its ministers to the world.

Information courtesy of The United Methodist Church, the UMC Book of Discipline and The Religious Movements Homepage Project at the University of Virginia