October 16, 2016 "What about the ‘United’ part?"

“So I get why we are called Methodists, but what about the ‘United’ part? Does that have something to do with a merger?” Actually, the “United” part of “The United Methodist Church” is the result of a merger, but it may not be the merger that you would expect. Since the days of John and Charles Wesley, the people called Methodists have gone through many organizational changes.

When the North American colonies won their independence, John Wesley acknowledged that the American Methodists needed to step up to meet these changes. He dispatched Thomas Coke to oversee things in America. In 1784, on Christmas Eve, a conference of American Methodists met at Lovely Lane Meetinghouse in Baltimore, Maryland. This “Christmas Conference” formed the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Since that time, divisions among Methodists created the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Free Methodist Church of America, The Pentecostal Holiness Church and many others. Additionally in 1800, Philip William Otterbein, a close friend of Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury, founded the United Brethren in Christ. They accepted Methodist doctrines and discipline, but differences kept the two separate.

In 1939, the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and the Methodist Protestant Church merged to form The Methodist Church. In 1946, the United Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Church merged to form the Evangelical United Brethren. And finally in 1968, The Evangelical United Brethren combined with The Methodist Church to form The United Methodist Church.

While The United Methodist Church is today the largest of the Wesleyan movements, “the people called Methodists” are far from totally “United.” Among the Methodists, there remain over thirteen separate Methodist denominations. The people of The United Methodist Church are part of the second largest Protestant denomination in the United States. Our worldwide connection includes approximately 12.8 million members.[1] But most importantly, we are united with all other Christians in Christ’s Universal Church which includes all believers throughout time. So while we may attend different denominational local churches than some of our neighbors, all Christians remain united in Christ.

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[1] United Methodist Communications. (2016) Who We Are | The United Methodist Church. Retrieved October 13, 2016, from http://www.umc.org/who-we-are