Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother Charles Wesley were also significant early leaders in the movement. They were named Methodists for "the methodical way in which they carried out their Christian faith". Methodism originated as a revival movement within the 18th-century Church of England and became a separate denomination after Wesley's death. The movement spread throughout the British Empire, the United States, and beyond because of vigorous missionary work, today claiming approximately 80 million adherents worldwide.
John Wesley was an English cleric, theologian, and evangelist, who was a leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies he founded became the dominant form of the independent Methodist movement that continues to this day.
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.
A Methodist Local Preacher is a layperson who has been accredited by the Methodist Church to lead worship and preach on a regular basis. With separation from the Church of England by the end of the 18th century, a clear distinction was recognised between itinerant ministers (presbyters) and the local preachers who assisted them. Local preachers have played an important role in Methodism since the earliest days of the movement, and have also been important in English social history. These preachers continue to serve an indispensable role in the Methodist Church of Great Britain, in which the majority of church services are led by laypeople.
The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination with the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834).
Primitive Methodism was a major movement in English and Welsh Methodism from about 1810 until the Methodist Union in 1932. It emerged from a revival at Mow Cop in Staffordshire. Primitive meant "simple" or "relating to an original stage"; the Primitive Methodists saw themselves as practising a purer form of Christianity, closer to the earliest Methodists. Although the denomination did not bear the name "Wesleyan", Primitive Methodism was Wesleyan in theology, in contrast to the Calvinistic Methodists.
Nathan Bangs was an American Christian theologian in the Methodist tradition and influential leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church prior to the 1860s.
Circuit rider clergy, in the earliest years of the United States, were clergy assigned to travel around specific geographic territories to minister to settlers and organize congregations. Circuit riders were clergy in the Methodist Episcopal Church and related denominations, although similar itinerant preachers could be found in other faiths as well, particularly among minority faith groups.
Richard Whatcoat was the third bishop of the American Methodist Episcopal Church.
The Christmas Conference was an historic founding conference of the newly independent Methodists within the United States held just after the American Revolution at Lovely Lane Chapel in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1784.
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.
St. George's United Methodist Church, located at the corner of 4th and New Streets, in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, is the oldest Methodist church in continuous use in the United States, beginning in 1769. The congregation was founded in 1767, meeting initially in a sail loft on Dock Street, and in 1769 it purchased the shell of a building which had been erected in 1763 by a German Reformed congregation. At this time, Methodists had not yet broken away from the Anglican Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church was not founded until 1784.
The Character and Death of Mrs. Hester Ann Rogers is a Methodist tract from 1794, still in print in 2008. The text is a publication of the sermon given by the Reverend Thomas Coke upon the death of the Methodist writer Hester Rogers, with an appendix written by her husband James Rogers; there is a third section, a “Supplement to the Appendix—consisting of Miscellaneous Extracts from the Journals of Mrs. Hester Ann Rogers.” Coke's sermon and James Rogers' appendix both contain published passages from Hester Rogers' own book entitled A Short Account of the Experience of Mrs. H.A. Rogers, Written by Herself as well as unpublished excerpts from her journals and correspondence. The history of the “Supplement to the Appendix” is not clear.
The organisation of the Methodist Church of Great Britain is based on the principle of connexionalism. This means that British Methodism, from its inception under John Wesley (1703–1791), has always laid strong emphasis on mutual support, in terms of ministry, mission and finance, of one local congregation for another. No singular church community has ever been seen in isolation either from its immediately neighbouring church communities or from the centralised national organisation. Wesley himself journeyed around the country, preaching and establishing local worshipping communities, called "societies", often under lay leadership. Soon these local communities of worshipping Christians formalised their relationships with neighbouring Methodist communities to create "circuits", and the circuits and societies contained within them, were from the very beginning 'connected' to the centre and Methodism's governing body, the annual Conference. Today, societies are better known as local churches, although the concept of a community of worshipping Christians tied to a particular location, and subdivided into smaller cell groups called "classes", remains essentially based on Wesley's societies.
Freeborn Garrettson was an American clergyman, and one of the first American-born Methodist preachers. He entered the Methodist ministry in 1775 and travelled extensively to evangelize in several states. He was called Methodism's "Paul Revere". Garrettson was an outspoken abolitionist.
Philip Embury was a Methodist preacher, a leader of one of the earliest Methodist congregations in the United States.
Thomas Birch Freeman was an Anglo-African Wesleyan minister, missionary, botanist and colonial official in West Africa. He is widely regarded as a pioneer of the Methodist Church in colonial West Africa, where he also established multiple schools. Some scholars view him as the “Founder of Ghana Methodism”. Freeman's missionary activities took him to Dahomey, now Benin as well as to Western Nigeria.
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.
Christopher Hopper (1722–1802) was the President of the Methodist Conference in John Wesley's absence, at the Bristol conference in 1780.
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