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History of the UMC
How old is the United Methodist Church?
"The present denomination was created in 1968 with the merger of The Methodist Church and The Evangelical United Brethren Church. The Evangelical United Brethren Church was the result of a 1946 union of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Church. The Methodist Church was the result of a 1939 union of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Protestant Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South."
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Where did the church get its name?
 "John and Charles Wesley and a few other young men attending Oxford University met regularly in 1729 for intellectual and spiritual improvement and to help one another become better Christians. So systematic were their habits of religious duty and their rules of conduct that other students referred to them as 'Methodists.' The word 'United' new in our name comes from The Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) Church, which united with The Methodist Church in 1968."
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But aren't there other Methodist denominations?
"Yes, several. The World Methodist Council, organized in 1881, is an association of 68 Methodist or united churches representing more then 29 million members and a constituency of 60 million in 108 countries of the world. The eight united churches in the Council are those in which Methodists have joined with others to form a new denomination such as the United Church of Canada."
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How many Methodist denominations are there in the United States?
"There are at least 19 Wesleyan denominations in the United States. Largest of these, with 8.7 million members, is The United Methodist Church. It ranks as the second largest Protestant denomination behind the Southern Baptists."
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When did African Americans become part of Methodism?
 "From the early days of American Methodism. At the Christmas Conference of 1784 in Baltimore, persons in attendance included Richard Allen and Harry Hosier, both popular black preachers and former slaves. Anne Sweitzer, a slave, was on the roll of the first Methodist society of America, founded in Maryland in 1764. A servant named Bettye helped start the John Street Church in New York, the first formal Methodist meetinghouse in America. Two other black women contributed money to help build that chapel. Thousands of black Methodist converts, both slave and free, were worshiping among whites in camp meetings and revivals."
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Isn't there an African American Methodist denomination?
"There are several. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, formally organized in 1816, traces it's origin to an incident at St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia in 1787 when a group of African Americans left the church to protest racial discrimination. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church dates from 1796, when it was organized by a group of members protesting discrimination in the John Street Methodist Church in New York City. Their first church, named Zion, was built in 1800, and that word was later made part of the denominational title. The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church was established in 1870, after an agreement between white and black members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. These three historically black denominations have a combined membership of more than 4.5 million. An official committee representing these three black churches and The United Methodist Church is currently exploring the possibility of union."
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Are there many African American members in The United Methodist Church today?
"African Americans represent the largest ethnic minority membership in United Methodism today in the United States with about 300,000 members." |
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