Archive: Martin Boehm: One of the Brethren

By Joanne Wilson, McClure, Pennsylvania

A short, bearded man reined his horse at the end of the furrow. He knelt to pray. At the end of every furrow he knelt to pray.

“Lost! Lost!” were the words that haunted him.

Finally in the middle of the field he sank to his knees behind the plow. “Lord, save me. I’m lost!”

He ran from the field and into the kitchen where his wife was churning butter. “Eve, a stream of joy was poured over me!” he shouted.

He could hardly wait to tell the folks on Sunday. In times past he had never looked forward to Sunday. Martin Boehm was a Mennonite preacher, yet he had nothing to preach. Now he had something!

As he stood in the little Mennonite church that Sunday morning he told of his experience in the field.

“Oh Martin, we are indeed lost,” a man cried. “Yes, man is lost,” Martin agreed. “Christ will never find us till we know we are lost.”

The preacher’s wife, Eve, was the next person to find the joy and peace of salvation.

This was the beginning of Martin Boehm’s evangelical preaching. He could not keep quiet about his conversion, which would later become a source of contention between him and his church.

Martin Boehm was born seven miles south of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on November 30, 1725. At the age of 31 he became a preacher. But it was not until his experience in the field that his ministry began to have any results.

He held “great meetings,” as they were called, in many German-speaking towns, traveling as far south as the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. His words seemed to come directly from God. People were made to feel they needed a Savior.

Boots and spurs

On one occasion Boehm was preaching, “Sinners are going to hell with boots and spurs.”

In the crowd sat Dr. Peter Senseny who looked down at his large pair of riding boots and spurs. The words echoed in his heart. He found no rest until he made his peace with God. He became an honored preacher of the Gospel.

Some people became very disturbed with the effects of Martin Boehm’s ministry. Such was the case of B. Carper while Rev. Boehm was preaching in Conewago, Pennsylvania.

“I will kill him,” Carper threatened. “He is a false prophet and a deceiver. He bewitching power over the people.”

Carper went to the meeting and waited at the door for the service to close. As he listened he felt sure Martin Boehm was preaching directly at him and he began to tremble and shake. The more he heard the more he shook. Finally he ran home. Wherever he went he saw in his mind a little man with a large beard. He had no rest until he became a new creature in Christ Jesus.

Those who did not serve Christ hated and feared Martin Boehm. Those who served God were moved to praise the Lord.

On Pentecost Day, 1767, Boehm was scheduled to preach a service in Isaac Long’s 180-foot barn. The crowd was so large that they moved to the orchard.

After Boehm’s sermon Philip William Otterbein, a Dutch Reformed minister, ran up to him and threw his arms around Boehm. “Wir sind brüder,” he cried. (We are brethren.)

The EUB Church

From that first meeting they became close friends. They preached and worked together and ultimately formed the United Brethren in Christ. In 1946 this church joined with the Evangelical Church making the Evangelical United Brethren Church.

Boehm kept his ties with the Mennonite Church until 1777, when a formal break occurred. The church censured him on three counts: doctrine, manner of preaching, and associating with men of other denominations. Francis Asbury was among his preaching associates. They frequently shared in each other’s services. Boehm’s son, Henry, became an itinerant preacher with the Methodist Episcopal Church, covering circuits in Maryland and Virginia, as well as Pennsylvania. At the request of Asbury, Henry supervised the German translation of the 1805 Methodist Discipline.

A group of Methodists formed a class in Martin Boehm’s home around 1775, and his wife was one of the first to join. About seven years later Martin himself joined the M.E. Church. The particular local church was established on land donated by the Boehm family. When Martin decided to devote full time to traveling and preaching he turned over his farm to his son, Jacob, who, in turn, gave a portion of ground “to a Society of Christians calling themselves Methodists.” On this land, Boehm’s Chapel, the first Methodist Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was built in 1791.

Boehm’s Chapel is a landmark in American Methodism. Long before the merger of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church in 1968, ties between these two churches and their founders were close.

Martin Boehm faithfully preached the Gospel for 55 years. He died at his home on March 23, 1812, at the age of 87. A few days after the burial in the cemetery at Boehm’s Chapel, Henry Boehm and Bishop Asbury arrived at Martin’s home. The following Sunday, Asbury preached a fitting sermon in tribute to his friend who was “greatly beloved in life, and deeply lamented in death.”