Francis Asbury was one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. During his 45 years in the colonies and the newly independent United States, he devoted his life to ministry, traveling on horseback and by carriage thousands of miles to those living on the frontier.
The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself on a national basis. In 1939, the MEC reunited with two breakaway Methodist denominations to form the Methodist Church. In 1968, the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the United Methodist Church.
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South was the Methodist denomination resulting from the 19th-century split over the issue of slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC). Disagreement on this issue had been increasing in strength for decades between churches of the North and South; in 1844 it resulted in a schism at the General Conference of the MEC held in Louisville, Kentucky.
Richard Allen was a minister, educator, writer, and one of America's most active and influential Black leaders. In 1794, he founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent Black denomination in the United States. He opened his first AME church in 1794 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Asbury University is a private Christian university in Wilmore, Kentucky. Although it is a nondenominational school, the college's foundation stems from a Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. The school offers 50-plus majors across 17 departments. In the fall of 2016, Asbury University had a total enrollment of 1,854: 1,640 traditional undergraduate students and 214 graduate students. The campus of Asbury Theological Seminary, which became a separate institution in 1940, is located across the street from Asbury University.
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, or the AME Zion Church or AMEZ, is a historically African-American Christian denomination based in the United States. It was officially formed in 1821 in New York City, but operated for a number of years before then. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology.
Matthew Simpson was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1852 and based mostly in Philadelphia. During the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War, most evangelical denominations in the North, especially the Methodists, were initially strong supporters of radical policies that favored the Freedmen and distrusted the Southern whites. However by the late 1860s in border state conferences, the MEC North moved well away from their work with the Freedmen's Bureau and often sided with the grievances of Southern white members. Bishop Simpson played a leading role in mobilizing the Northern Methodists for the cause. His biographer calls him the "High Priest of the Radical Republicans."
Richard Whatcoat was the third bishop of the American Methodist Episcopal Church.
John Emory was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1832. He is the namesake for Emory University and Emory & Henry College, both Methodist-affiliated American universities.
Arthur James Moore was an American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS), the Methodist Church, and the United Methodist Church, elected in 1930.
Edward Thomson was an American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1864.
An annual conference in Methodism is a regional body that governs much of the life of the "connectional church". Annual conferences are composed primarily of the clergy members and a lay member or members from each charge. Each conference is a geographical division. In general, the smaller states in the United States hold one conference each, while larger states often include two or more conferences. Several annual conferences are held in other nations as well.
Thomas Coke was the first Methodist bishop. Born in Brecon, Wales, he was ordained as a priest in 1772, but expelled from his Anglican pulpit of South Petherton for being a Methodist. Coke met John Wesley in 1776. He later co-founded Methodism in America and then established the Methodist missions overseas, which in the 19th century spread around the world.
An elder, in many Methodist churches, is an ordained minister that has the responsibilities to preach and teach, preside at the celebration of the sacraments, administer the church through pastoral guidance, and lead the congregations under their care in service ministry to the world.
John Early was instrumental in organizing the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was their bishop from 1854.
John Wesley Hughes was an American minister. He was born in Owen County, Kentucky and was converted at the age of sixteen in a Methodist revival meeting in an old schoolhouse. Hughes attended Kentucky Wesleyan College in Millersburg, Kentucky, and served as a pastor in the Kentucky Conference of the Methodist Church before pursuing further education at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection (AWMC), originally the Wesleyan Methodist Church , and also known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church (WMC), is a Methodist denomination within the conservative holiness movement primarily based in the United States, with missions in Peru, Ghana, and Haiti.
The history of Methodism in the United States dates back to the mid-18th century with the ministries of early Methodist preachers such as Laurence Coughlan and Robert Strawbridge. Following the American Revolution most of the Anglican clergy who had been in America came back to England. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, sent Thomas Coke to America where he and Francis Asbury founded the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was to later establish itself as the largest denomination in America during the 19th century.
