The bloody American Revolution had just ended. In it, a new nation had been born, and was now taking its first faltering steps in freedom. Methodists in America were on their own, and so the preachers assembled in Baltimore for a “Christmas Conference.” God showed His will to them, and the Methodist Episcopal Church was born.

Archive: CHRISTMAS 1784

by Eddie Robb, Good News Associate Editor

On an autumn-crisp day in November, 1784, a large ship sailed into New York harbor. The voyage from England had taken 47 days. On board the Four Friends, packed with immigrants and merchants, were a man and a letter which would change the character of the new world. The man was Dr. Thomas Coke. The letter he carried was from an 81-year-old Anglican priest—John Wesley.

Now that the long, bitter War of Independence was over and the peace treaty with England had been officially signed, Mr. Wesley determined it was time to give the American Methodists their liberty, too. So he ordained three men and sent them to America with plans for establishing a new church. They arrived in the new world together aboard the Four Friends.

For 18 years before Coke’s arrival, Methodists had been busy in America. They organized societies, built chapels, conducted conferences, and thundered out the Gospel good news of salvation through Jesus’ shed blood at Calvary. In all of this they had depended upon English Methodism for leadership and upon the clergy of the Church of England for the sacraments.

Understandably, this arrangement had never been very popular with the Americans, even before the war. Seven years of bloody fighting and political turmoil had made continued dependence on English leadership completely unworkable. By 1784, when Coke arrived, nearly all the Anglican priests had loyally returned to their mother country. The Methodists in America had almost no one to serve them communion and baptize their children.

Even the original Methodist preachers Wesley had sent from England had fled home—or died. Or quit. Only Francis Asbury remained as the lone English Methodist leader working in America.

But staying in the new world during such uncertain and perilous times was not easy—even for Asbury.

“I can by no means agree to leave a field for gathering souls to Christ, as we have in America,” he wrote as the Revolution developed. “I was under some heaviness of mind. But it was no wonder—three thousand miles from home, my friends have left me; I am considered by some as an enemy of the country; every day liable to be seized by violence, and abused. However, all this but a trifle to suffer for Christ and the salvation of souls.” In spite of the hardship caused by the war, Methodism not only survived in America—it prospered. During the war the number of Methodist preachers increased from 24 to 82. And the number of members grew from 4,921 to 13,740! As colonial soldiers were fighting for political independence under General George Washington, native Methodist preachers scurried through the backwoods proclaiming spiritual freedom in Christ. Under the leadership of Asbury they laid the groundwork for a new church.

But even though American Methodism was growing, all was not well. Society members and preachers were becoming increasingly disturbed because Mr. Wesley—who ruled the American societies from England—insisted the Methodists in the new world remain within the Church of England and receive the sacraments only from Anglican priests. Wesley commanded his itinerant preachers to stick to their work of evangelism. Period.

Asbury, and most of the northern preachers in America obeyed Mr. Wesley. But the southern Preachers, particularly those of Virginia and North Carolina, were determined to  begin serving the sacraments. The result was serious dissention among American Methodists.

In 1779, Asbury and the northern preachers refused to attend the regularly scheduled conference of Methodism in Fluvanna County, Virginia. Instead, the northern faction held its own conference in Delaware. The northerners refused even to consider their southern brothers as Methodists “till they come back.”

A permanent breach was narrowly avoided through Francis Asbury’s skillful diplomacy and his great prestige in both north and south. (After all, he was the only original Methodist preacher from England to remain in America.)

In 1780 Asbury traveled by horseback to Virginia, where he met with the southern preachers. After delicate negotiations and much prayer, a compromise solution was reached: the southern Methodist preachers agreed to cease administering the sacraments and ordaining ministers for one year, during which time Asbury would write Mr. Wesley for his advice.

The underlying issue was: would American Methodism become a separate church and begin ordaining ministers and administering the sacraments? Or would it remain as unofficial soc1et1es within the Church of England? Surely, the Americans thought, Mr. Wesley would promptly provide the answer.

During those times, nothing happened quickly because communication back and forth across the Atlantic was slow. One year’s waiting stretched to four—still no answer from Mr. Wesley.

Though the American preachers and laypeople grew increasingly impatient, Asbury somehow managed to prevent another split.

After the peace treaty with England was signed in 1783, Asbury wrote again to Wesley, imploring him to come to America: “We are greatly in need of help …. Nothing is so pleasing to me, sir, as the thought of seeing you here; which is the ardent desire of thousands more in America.”

Wesley didn’t go to America. He was then past 80 and hardly in condition to sail across the Atlantic! But in 1784 he finally made up his mind regarding American Methodism: his societies in the new world must be set free to form an independent church.

Nothing pained Wesley more, but he had completely given up hope of receiving any aid from the Church of England. The Bishop of London had refused to send more ordained Anglicans. “There are three ministers in that country already!” the bishop stated indignantly. Wesley replied caustically that these three English ministers might know “something of Greek and Latin, but no more of saving souls than of catching whales.”

Reluctantly, Wesley decided that his only choice was to ordain and send his own lay preachers. So on Wednesday, Sept. 1, 1784, he and two other Anglican ministers laid hands on Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey.

“These are the steps, which not of choice but necessity, I have slowly and deliberately taken,” Wesley wrote. “If anyone is pleased to call this separating from the church, he may!”

The Anglican clergy were aghast—naturally. And so were some of Wesley’s own English Methodist preachers. One wrote, “Ordination among the Methodists! Amazing indeed! Surely it never began in the midst of a multitude of counselors …. Years to come will speak in groans the approbrious anniversary of our religious madness for gowns and bands.”

Even Mr. Wesley’s own brother, Charles, was horrified by his action. Charles wrote to a friend saying that his brother had “left an indelible blot on his name as long as it shall be remembered.” Of himself he exclaimed, “I have lived on earth a little too long, who have lived to see this evil day!”

At 10 o’clock in the morning, Sept. 18, 1784, his three appointed representatives set sail for the new world. When Coke, Whatcoat, and Vasey arrived in New York Harbour 47 days later, there was no official welcoming committee waiting as they walked down the gangplank of the Four Friends. In fact, it took Coke almost two weeks to find the ever-traveling Francis Asbury!

They finally did meet at Barratt’s Chapel near Dover, Delaware. Dr. Coke had ridden out to preach the Sunday morning sermon, and while he was preaching Asbury slipped in the back door.

“After the sermon,” Coke recorded in his journal, “a plain, robust man came up to me in the pulpit and kissed me. I thought it could be no other than Mr. Asbury, and I was not deceived.” The whole congregation burst into tears.

Later that afternoon Dr. Coke shared with the American Methodist leader the letter he had brought from Mr. Wesley. “And we judge it best.” Wesley had written, “that they [the American Methodists] should stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has so strangely made them free.”

John Wesley never envisioned how free the American Methodists would become! It is evident from his letters that he fully intended to continue ruling the new church through his hand-picked superintendents, Coke and Asbury.

That arrangement suited Coke just fine. But Francis Asbury—now fully immersed in American democracy—had different ideas. He informed Coke that he had brought together a small number of preachers to help decide the proper course of action. After a long discussion they decided that a special conference should be called so all the preachers could decide their own future. Thus, the conference, not Mr. Wesley, would have the final word. At that meeting Asbury told Dr. Coke that he wouldn’t allow himself to be ordained a joint Superintendent—as Wesley had instructed—unless elected by his fellow circuit riders.

Coke agreed, and plans were begun for the historic “Christmas Conference.” Coke wrote, “We therefore sent off Freeborn Garrettson, like an arrow from North to South, directing him to send messengers to the right and left, and to gather all the preachers together at Baltimore on Christmas Eve.”

Garrettson rode, by his own account, about 1,200 miles in six weeks’ time. As a result, by the middle of December 1784, most of the Methodist preachers were on their way to Baltimore. (However, some of the preachers later complained that Garrettson had stopped too often to preach; thus he didn’t reach them in time with the news.)

And so, at last, at 10 o’clock in the morning, Christmas Eve 1784, about 60 Methodist preachers gathered in Lovely Lane Chapel. There, in that cold, small building with hard wooden benches, these devoted Methodist circuit riders spent the next 10 days hammering out the structure of America’s first indigenous church.

Not surprisingly, the world took little notice of this historic gathering. The young participants were, after all, neither powerful politically nor strong numerically. Few of them were formally educated, but what they accomplished during those 10 days literally changed the character of our nation. They birthed a new church which was to quickly become the dominant force in American Christianity, and subsequently the religious mirror of American culture and values.

Today The United Methodist Church claims almost 10 million members; 35,488 ordained ministers; 24,730 local congregations; and 45 bishops. It all began at the humble “Christmas Conference,” back in 1784.