What Does That Church Believe: Methodists?

 

Where did they come from?

• Around 1729 at Oxford University, John (1703-1791) and Charles (1707-1788) Wesley began methodically meeting with a group of students at a stated time for “prayer and religious exercises.”  They held to a strict regiment of prayer, fasting, Bible reading, and ministry.
• John was ordained a deacon in the Church of England and eventually a priest in 1735.
• On May 24, 1738, on Aldersgate Street in London, England during a Moravian worship service, John experienced a religious awakening.  He remembered, “About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.  I felt I did trust in Christ; Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”  As a result of his revival, he began to preach all over England to anyone who would listen.  He was the instrument of revival throughout the country. 
• In 1766, Philip Embury organized a “connection” of Methodist societies in New York.  These societies quickly formed in other states also, including Pennsylvania and Maryland.
• In 1769, John Wesley sent his first missionaries to America that included Francis Asbury (1745-1816).
• In 1773, the first annual Methodist conference was held in Philadelphia.  In 1784, the Methodist Episcopal Church was formally organized as a body separate from the English Methodist structure.  Asbury and Thomas Coke (1747-1814) became bishops in authority over the new church.

 

Charles Wesley’s Writings

• And Can It Be
• Christ the Lord is Risen Today
• Rejoice, the Lord is King
• Blessed Be the Name
• O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing

 

What are their beliefs?

• The Apostles’ Creed
• 25 Articles of Religion
• The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Church

 

What makes them unique?

• Strictly Arminian and a strong emphasis on human free will

• The possibility of “falling from grace” or losing one’s salvation: see John 6:37-40, 10:27-30; Romans 8:31-39, 2 Timothy 1:12; 1 John 2:19.  What are the implications in believing that a believer can “fall from grace?”

 

Questions to Consider:

1. What is the difference between Methodism and Wesleyanism?
2. What is the difference between Perkins School of Theology and Asbury Theological Seminary?
3. Why do Methodists baptize infants?

 

 

 

 

Name	Founded	Members	Congregations	Website
African Methodist Episcopal Church	1816	1,857,186	7741	www.amecnet.org
Congregational Methodist Church	1852	14,738	187	www.congregationalmethodist.net
Free Methodist Church of North America	1860	61,202	971	www.freemethodist.org
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church	1870	850,000	2980	www.c-m-e.org
Evangelical Congregational Church	1928	21,463	168	www.eccenter.com
Southern Methodist Church	1939	7686	82	www.southernmethodistchurch.org
The Evangelical Methodist Church	1946	8615	105	www.emchurch.org
The Evangelical Church of North America	1968	12,475	164	www.theevangelicalchurch.org
The United Methodist Church	1968	8,298,145	24,162	www.umc.org
Wesleyan Church	1968	114,211	1887	www.wesleyan.org