Methodist Churches

Methodist Churches. In 1784 J. Wesley (q.v.) made provision for the continuance as a corporate body of the ‘Yearly Conference of the People called Methodists’ by nominating 100 persons whom he declared to be its members and laying down the method by which their successors were to be appointed. The Conference had power to appoint preachers to the various ‘Preaching Houses’ (later ‘chapels’), the ownership of which was vested in boards of trustees. When Wesley died in 1791 the future relations of Methodism with the C of E were a matter of dispute, but the ‘Plan of Pacification’ adopted by the Conference of 1795 led to the administration of Baptism and Holy Communion in Methodist chapels and the declaration that the admission of a preacher to ‘full connexion with the Conference’ conferred ministerial rights. Ordination by the imposition of the hands of ministers was adopted again in 1836.

The secession of the Methodist New Connexion in 1797 was small. In the first half of the 19th cent. there were secessions of the bodies who became the Primitive Methodist Church, the Bible Christians, and the Wesleyan Methodist Association and the Wesleyan Reformers, some of whom joined together in 1857 as the United Methodist Free Churches. In 1907 the Methodist New Connexion, the Bible Christians, and the United Methodist Free Churches came together to form the United Methodist Church; in 1932 this united with the original or ‘Wesleyan’ Methodist Church and the Primitive Methodist Church to form the Methodist Church in Great Britain. The United Methodists and the Wesley Reform Union remain separate bodies.

The organization of the Methodist Church is virtually presbyterian, the supreme authority being the Conference, which consists of equal numbers of ministers and laymen. According to a system peculiar to Methodism, ‘All members [of the Methodist Church] shall have their names entered on a Class Book, shall be placed under the pastoral care of a Class Leader, and shall receive a Quarterly Ticket of Membership’. The weekly class-meeting for ‘fellowship in Christian experience’ has been a valuable institution.

In 1784 Wesley ‘set apart’ T. Coke and others for N. America. With the growth of the USA, Methodist numbers increased rapidly. After the Civil War there were two main Methodist Churches, one in the North and one in the South; they were reunited in 1939. In 1968 the Methodist Church of the United States was joined by the Evangelical United Brethren to from the United Methodist Church; there are still also a number of smaller Methodist bodies. American Methodism is largely ‘episcopal’ in possessing superintendents who are called bishops, though claiming no episcopal Orders in the Catholic sense. There are Methodist Churches in most parts of the world, many under separate Conferences. Those in Canada, South India, Zambia, and Australia have entered their respective United Churches, while in Continental Europe Methodists have united with other Protestants in Belgium, Spain, and France. In 1997 Methodist members numbered over 33 million, of whom 13.7 million were in the USA and c.400,000 in Britain. See also ANGLICAN-METHODIST CONVERSATIONS.