Today: History Overview
This is a brief overview of the history of The United Methodist Church off the top of my head...
After Jesus's death, resurrection, and ascension, his disciples shared their beliefs about Jesus and what it meant to follow in his way with others. This Good News spread across the known world, and the church was born. For a millennium, the church (for the most part) was one - unified by its common leadership and theology. Then, in 1054, for various theological but mostly political reasons, the church split east and west into the Roman Catholic Church in the west and the Orthodox Church in the east. In the west, the Roman Catholic Church stayed (for the most part) unified until the Protestant Reformation in 1517 and the English Reformation in 1534, which gave birth to the Church of England.
In the 1700s, John and Charles Wesley, themselves sons of an Anglican priest, were studying for the priesthood at Oxford when they formed a small group that met together to pray, study, performs acts of mercy and justice, and hold one another accountable. This group became nicknamed the "Holiness Club." Through this experience, they realized the importance of small groups and having a methodical (that's where our name comes from) approach to discipleship. Their desire was for faith to come alive and transform their lives, the nation, and the world.
Thus began the Methodist movement as an attempt to revive and reform the Church of England. They organized small groups, preached in public (rather than only in cathedrals), went on missionary trips, and much more. Both Wesley brothers had their hearts "strangely warmed" in 1738 as they became convinced of God's love for them and ignited a fervor across England and her colonies. The movement grew and spread within and beyond the Church of England, all with John's brilliant organizational abilities providing legs to it and Charles's beautiful hymns providing a voice.
The Methodist movement was thriving in America in 1776. As war broke out, the Church of England recalled her priests back to England, leaving those of a Methodist persuasion in America without ordained leadership to order the church or perform the sacraments. The Methodists pushed forward with strong laity, but there was great need for clergy as well. John Wesley petitioned those in the Church of England repeatedly to send priests to America and provide pastoral leadership to the people there, but his requests were denied. So, in 1884, Wesley took matters into his own hands. Citing extraordinary circumstances and reasoning that he was already acting as a de facto bishop for the Methodists, he consecrated Thomas Coke as superintendent for the Methodists in America and sent him across the Atlantic, where Coke organized a new church with the Methodists already there: the Methodist Episcopal Church. Coke and Francis Asbury were made the first bishops.
As the nation began to expand westward, so did the church. Little Methodist meeting houses popped up across the frontier and travelling preachers known as Circuit Riders were assigned areas of responsibility. They would travel from place to place - on a circuit - to hold quarterly meetings with congregations, to celebrate the sacraments, to preach, and to share in fellowship. As cities began to form and churches became established, pastors were appointed to serve these station churches. The methods and focus of disciple-making shifted from the small group class meetings of early Methodists to Church School. Hospitals, colleges, nursing homes, and orphanages were founded, and the church continued to grow.
As you can see, the history of Methodists in America closely parallels that of our nation. The church was born around the time of our nation, has a similar governing structure and philosophy, and struggled with many of the same issues. One of the biggest issues for the first several decades was slavery. The African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion broke away and remain separate denominations. The church split north and south in 1844, foreshadowing the Civil War. In fact, at the time, the Methodist Episcopal Church had more people attending worship than any other denomination, and some scholars have speculated that if the church had been able to work out its differences on this issue, perhaps the nation would have as well.
North and south reunited in 1939, along with a smaller break-away Methodist denomination called the Methodist Protestant Church, to form the Methodist Church. Then, in 1968, the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) to form The United Methodist Church. We get the "United" from the EUB church.
Today, The United Methodist Church is the second largest Protestant denomination in the United States behind the Southern Baptists. We have just under 8 million members here and more than 11 million worldwide. Our mission statement is to "make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."
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