Archive: Good News and Charismatics

by Steve | Mar 2, 1978 | Archive - 1978

Archive: Good News and Charismatics[1]

By Charles W. Keysor, Editor, Good News Magazine

Late last year a separate organization was formed by some United Methodists who are charismatic. It is known as UM Renewal Services Fellowship. Its headquarters are in Nashville and its founding president is Dr. William P. Wilson, a psychiatrist, who belongs to the Good News Board of Directors and is scheduled as a major speaker at both Good News convocations this summer.

Formation of UMRSF illustrates a point Good News has been stressing since 1966: Lots of people have spiritual needs which our church is not meeting. One proof of this has been the steady growth of Good News for a decade. In 1977 came still another proof: the organization of these charismatics.

We seem to hold two things in common: both Good News and UMRSF want more spiritual vitality in our church. Also, both began outside of the institutional church womb.

However, unlike Good News, the new organization has quickly sought official approval and sanction. It has applied for, and secured, semi-official status with the UM Board of Discipleship. Its first Executive Director, Rev. Ross Whetstone, is a former staff member of the Board of Discipleship.

Good News, on the other hand, has always been completely independent of any denominational board or agency. We have cared more about upholding Biblical truth and reforming the church than about winning the approval and sanction of church leaders. God has provided this independence so we can be free to speak prophetically to the church-and act prophetically as the Holy Spirit directs.

Obviously, our concerns will overlap those of UMRSF in certain ways. We welcome their renewal efforts—the job of church reform is big enough for many groups, each working in its own style.

It remains to be seen how the charismatic brethren will fare in their quest for denominational blessing. The fact is, they stand conspicuously outside the liberal theological tradition which prevails in the UM hierarchy. Nevertheless, we hope they will be made warmly welcome at the institutional table. We urge church officials to cooperate with them fully. Failure to do after these charismatic leaders have so eagerly sought official acceptance, would be a serious failure in ministry … a breach of Christian brotherhood … and perhaps a violation of the new charismatic policy adopted by the last General Conference.

There is an interesting theological point in all of this. Good News, and now the UMRSF, have come into being because our church has long been theologically lopsided. Under the liberal dominance of the past 75 years, it has failed to give sufficient prominence to the great foundation truths of Holy Scripture. That is why Good News exists. Now UMRSF has formed because of United Methodist failure to place equal and adequate emphasis upon all three Persons of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Our church will remain unhealthy as long as it remains theologically unbalanced. Good News and others will continue working to correct this imbalance. Toward this goal, the prayers, energies, and dollars of many United Methodists are needed urgently. As we have for the past 10 years, Good News will continue working with United Methodists who love Jesus Christ and want the Bible as first authority in their lives. We stand ready to join hands with all others who will work for Scriptural Christianity within our United Methodist Church.

[1] *The first editorial appeared on page 38 of the issue for Sept/Oct 1977.

Archive: Why Not Emphasize Worship?

by Steve | Mar 1, 1978 | Archive - 1978

Archive: Why Not Emphasize Worship?

By Charles W. Keyson, Editor, Good News Magazine

Trial balloons are starting to float upward, borne on freshening political currents of the 1980 General Conference. Various pressure groups are jockeying to determine what will be the official emphasis of our church from 1980-1984. Will it be world hunger, ethnic minority church empowerment, and evangelism again? Raising money to undergird our church-related colleges? Or what?

Probably it will do no harm to float one more trial balloon: why doesn’t the United Methodist Church put its main emphasis on worship during the next quadrennium?

Some are making this suggestion, and I heartily agree. It would make good sense to pay attention officially to one activity without which the church ceases to be the church. It is not hard to imagine a church without apportionments, autocratic national agencies, COCU, church-supported political lobbyists, perpetual meetings, etc. But who can imagine a church without worship?

I am not talking about worship in terms of formal, printed prayers … elaborate liturgies to be dutifully read … rigid and unimaginative following of a calendared church year … flowing robes and stoles of proper color. Instead, I speak of worship as the upward soaring of the heart and mind into praise and adoration of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I speak of worship as God addressing us uniquely when a believing congregation gathers to seek His Word, His will, and His presence.

Behind the Iron Curtain, communist governments have tried to strangle the church. They often forbid churches to engage in education, youth ministry, or in efforts to change or challenge the political status quo. Prohibiting these church functions, the communists think, will destroy the churches. But worship is permitted because secularists consider it unimportant.

Reports coming from the “underground churches” indicate surprising vitality. Forbidden to do anything except worship, churches are thriving.

A recent American visitor was astonished, and thrilled, with the vibrant faith he found among some Christians in Iron Curtain countries. Said he: “They crowd the churches and they boldly risk imprisonment, loss of jobs, and open persecution—all for the faith! I cannot get over the contrast between this robust faith and the tepid, anemic churches we have here at home.”

It would be a great irony if the communists, seeking to destroy the church, unwittingly made it stronger by eliminating diversions which may distract the church from its supreme responsibility: worship. What an irony if in America, where the church is totally free, it got so deeply involved in secondary matters that its worship became cold and dead.

What might happen if our church invested four years of serious effort in vitalizing United Methodist worship?

Vital worship makes Christians vital. And perhaps the greatest problem facing our church is how to infuse vitality into thousands of slumbering, self-satisfied, spiritually-dead congregations. How shall we cause millions of marginal church members to give God higher priority? How shall United Methodism escape the condemnation Jesus Christ declares upon churches which have fallen away from their first love for Him and have grown lukewarm? (Revelation 2:4-5; 3:15-16)

If we could answer these questions, the church would have no problems about money-except how to spend it all. Nor would we have any shortage of Christians getting involved in the world.

In many ways, our UM Church is like a great, immobile machine … needing only to be plugged into the source of energizing power. This power-source is God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! People are best connected with Him through vital corporate worship in which God (not man) is glorified and congregations are thus edified. This happens when the Holy Spirit exalts Christ through God’s written Word, the Bible, and the Sacraments of Baptism and Communion.

In other words, rich, warm, genuine Biblical worship is what the church must recover if it is to escape from being petrified, ossified, and secularized. Yet it would be blasphemy to consider worship as a four-year gimmick which will raise our sagging budgets and fill our empty pews! Jesus gave the right order when He said, “Seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33, New International Version) If we seek after United Methodist worship “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24) then God will take care of any genuine needs the church and its people may have.

What could be done during a four-year official emphasis on vitalizing United Methodist worship?

1. 1. Ways could be found to involve laypeople significantly in worship—to thus end the stony spectatoritis which so often chills our worship.
   2. We could recover the joy of singing-not only the “familiar few,” but we could learn to appreciate the many beautiful hymns which belong to our heritage.
   3. More vital worship could stimulate the writing of new hymns. For new hymns are born in times of vital faith; there is little incentive to create new songs of faith when worship becomes remote, secularized, impersonal, and stiffly formalized.
   4. Preaching could be improved, so that each week every UM congregation would be edified by eternal truth explained and applied to the actual life-needs of people in our pews.
   5. Congregations could learn more about worship. Many have never been taught the significance of responsive readings, offerings, public prayers, organ preludes, creeds, hymns. That is one reason why many lifetime church members just “go through the motions” Sunday after Sunday. Can we blame them for being less than enthusiastic when worship has so little meaning?
   6. The meaning and importance of Communion and Baptism could be clarified. We need to purge away misleading terms (like “Christening”) and sacramental bad habits (like private baptisms, which remove baptism from its proper place as a sacrament of the Body of Christ).
   7. The teachings of Scripture could be given fresh relevance by creating fresh responsive readings and statements of faith from the Bible. We could use the best contemporary Bible translations in order to edify the majority of our people who do not think in the language of 1611.
   8. People could be familiarized with the Bible by providing pew Bibles in every church and encouraging their use during our worship services.
   9. The depth of worship can be enhanced for many people by beautifying our sanctuaries. It is not necessary to equate ugliness with proper Protestantism. Beauty, after all, is one characteristic of true holiness.
   10. We could encourage pastors and people to pray naturally, easily, and from the heart. There ought to be many in each church who could lead others to the throne of grace.

It could be exciting if our church decided to spend four years stressing the central importance of worship!

Archive: And You Came to Me

by Steve | Jan 1, 1978 | Archive - 1978

Matthew 25:36
I was naked and you clothed me,
I was sick and you visited me,
I was in prison

Archive: And You Came to Me

Larry Bogart is a United Methodist doctor who spent three years in a maximum security prison, where God led him as a servant-witness for Jesus Christ.

Jake O. has spent years at the state penitentiary at Eddyville, Kentucky. His parents are now elderly and unable to visit him. During the three years I served as a medical director, I cannot recall his having a single visit. He is buried like a forgotten man in a giant sarcophagus of steel bars and electric fences.

Scripture gives us a mandate to “Think constantly of those in prison as if you were prisoners at their side.” (Phillips).

Unfortunately, we Christians, like the world, seem to have forgotten that even prisoners are human beings, with feelings and a need to be important to someone.

Christ never forgot. In fact, prisoners are so important to Him that He accepts an act of kindness toward an inmate as if He were the recipient. “I was in prison and you came to me … as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren you did it unto me.” Try as we might, His words will not go away.

Joe was down! He knew there was no sense getting up false hopes. I’ll never get out of this place. What’s the use trying to be straight? Then a visit came from Sister Christine, a loving, radiant Catholic teacher from Louisville. Joe was like a new person. Sister told Joe about his friend, Danny, who had been “out” nearly a year. Danny was going straight now, had married, and was buying a house. “We are waiting for you, Joe. Your home is with us.”

Joe’s hopes were revived. There was something out there to live for! It was worth the effort to stay “cool.” A few weeks later, Joe received a beautiful letter from Sister Christine. It reaffirmed him as a man, as someone important to someone out there. Again, Joe’s hopes were lifted and his will to go on strengthened.

Have you ever wondered why the church is called to remember and to visit convicts? Perhaps it’s because Christ knew it takes people to change people. People who care. People who are willing to get involved in Christ’s name. People who are willing, yes, even to fail.

After working for three years as a prison doctor, I’ve come to believe no significant reformation will occur behind prison walls until Christ’s mandate to care about prisoners is taken seriously.

When we do risk ourselves for prisoners, results come. God blesses our efforts.

Billy H. was once referred to as the meanest and most dangerous convict at Eddyville. He knew what it was like to spend four years in a tiny 6 by 10 cell, 24 hours a day, with an occasional shower and rarely a visit.

Then, a miracle! Two and a half years ago Billy found Christ. A beautiful Christian layman led him to the Lord. Thank God, Joe Rose’s concern did not end after he had won a convert. Week after week, he drove 150 miles round trip from his home in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, to Eddyville State Penitentiary to disciple Billy. This was the continuation of Joe Rose’s 20-year ministry during which he had been a true friend to many convicts. I often think of Joe when I hear the words of Jesus, “I was in prison and ye visited me.” Recently I heard Billy addressing about 80 fellow inmates. He said, “You cannot take a newborn baby and abandon him and expect him to survive. Because Joe and the Doc [Dr. Larry Bogart] stuck by me these three years, I can stand here tonight and assure you that I intend to live for Christ no matter what comes.”

Billy is now a radiant, sensitive Christian with the deepest love for Christ I have ever seen. As Billy became a new person in Christ, I found my friendship with him more and more enriching. In the end, the one we had so carefully discipled was ministering to us!

Perhaps another reason Christ commanded us to “come to prisoners” is because He knew the benefit for the visitor. I’ve frequently heard first-time visitors say, “This was one of the greatest experiences I have ever had. I had no idea what prisons or prisoners were like before. Those inmates are just like us.”

Something special happens to the person who cares enough to go against the grain of his anxiety, and visits a prisoner.

Men behind prison walls are numbed by endless days, pungent loneliness, and profound alienation. A sense of unreality and of ceasing to care sets in. A visit from someone who loves Jesus Christ, treats you with respect, who is willing to come back and be a friend can literally raise a man to life again. Resurrection!

In prison, a seemingly commonplace visit can so deeply influence another person’s life that it is almost like a religious experience. A visit—a simple visit—gives a prisoner new hope. To know someone cares; that here is someone I can trust—this can be the first step back to a meaningful future.

Gerrald Fair had been on Eddyville’s administrative control unit for nearly two years after taking hostages. Now he is attending Asbury College where he is majoring in the social sciences. His transformation started, by his own account, when he realized there were Christians who cared and believed in him.

In a study by noted psychologist Daniel Glasser, most ex-cons who remained “straight” over a five-year period had been influenced not by treatment staff per se, but by persons who had treated them justly. The study concluded that the reformative influence was a change in the offender’s perception of his relationship to others in society. A lay visitor who treats an inmate with love and respect may be the first reformative influence an inmate has encountered since he began a life of crime.

Many Christians are concerned about prisoners but do nothing simply because they do not know what to do. How do you go about visiting an inmate? How do you know whom to write or visit?

Fortunately most state or federal prisons and reformatories have a chaplaincy program. Either the chaplain or superintendent of treatment can furnish you names of men who receive no visitors or who wish to receive mail. Having received the names of such inmates, you simply choose one name, write a letter introducing yourself and offering to visit. Invariably the inmate will promptly write back inviting you. He will contact his case worker and have you placed on his visiting list. The case worker will send you a brief form to fill out and return. Then, you and the inmate can decide on a time and date for your visit.

One word of caution. Don’t send any items except letters or stamps unless you check with some official at the prison. If the inmate keeps asking you for gifts and favors, confront him with this attempted manipulation. If he persists, graciously break off this relationship and make contact with another man or woman. The majority of inmates I have known are like people anywhere. If they like you they will not try to use you.

Today the problem of crime has reached crisis proportions. If Christians continue to ignore prisons, they will continue to be breeding places for more crime. In no area has the church so abrogated its responsibility. In the one area of social concern where the transformation of men is most urgently needed, the church has readily permitted the whole burden to be laid on the state. This is not the answer. The state simply lacks the spiritual resources and vision to complete this task alone.

But concerned Christians, caring enough to visit a lonely inmate, can interrupt this vicious cycle of crime. If every Christian family who is free to do so would become a friend of one inmate, the results would be incredible. The lives of hopeless men and women would be transformed, not to mention the persons who would be freed from hell. How I wish I could better convey to you the urgency of this need. May the Spirit awaken His people to their mandate to “remember prisoners as if they were prisoners at their side!”

Would you like to get involved in prison ministry?

Write: Charles Colson, Prison Fellowship, P.O. Box 40562, Washington, D.C. 20016.

Editor’s note: February 1, 1977, Dr. Larry Bogart resigned as physician at Kentucky State Penitentiary (Eddyville). Bogart said his reasons for quitting included interference by prison officials with his management of the prison hospital and “severe budgetary restrictions that left the medical department without essential supplies.” He also cited the conflict between his philosophies and the “sadistic attitudes” of some prison employees.

Prison superintendent Don Bordenkircher said he spent more time with Bogart than with any other staff member. “I consider him a friend of mine,” the warden said. “Once in a blue moon you meet a Bogart … I disagree with some of the things he believes, but he‘s refreshing because whatever his philosophy, he genuinely believes it and lives it. … ”

The following is the testimony of one former prisoner whose life was touched by Dr. Bogart.

My name is Gerrald Fair. I am 27 years old and have been a Christian for one year. When I was born my father left my mother, who had to raise my sister and me alone. My mother remarried, but this marriage never worked out for me. My stepfather resented me. This unhappy home situation influenced me to run away from home. I spent some time with my grandmother who showed some love for me.

At the age of 12 I was caught shoplifting. By the time I was in the ninth grade I was a delinquent and barred from attending any of the schools in Fayette County, KY. I was considered incorrigible. This set in motion a chain of events which put me into every correctional institution in Kentucky—finally ending up in maximum security at Eddyville as a habitual criminal. My ten-year sentence was lengthened to 11 ½ years for cutting an officer and for holding hostages.

While in solitary confinement, Dr. Larry Bogart (medical director of prison) showed some interest in me and persuaded me to attend school classes. This resulted in my taking and passing the General Educational Development examination.

When my attitude changed for the better, I was granted parole with the condition that I have a home to live in, and a job. After several unsuccessful attempts in this direction I was invited to stay in the home of an older Christian couple, Dr. and Mrs. H. A. Hanke. I was given a job at a local auto body shop.

A few months after getting out of prison I was in a serious car accident resulting in a broken hip and brain concussion. When the authorities were about to send me to Eastern State, a mental hospital, the men at the men’s prayer breakfast in the local United Methodist Church had a special prayer for me. I was restored to complete mental health but still had a badly injured hip. This condition has now been healed and I am walking well with the use of a cane. I have just successfully completed a reduced college work load, and now have a full load for this winter quarter.

Last summer I was filled with the Holy Spirit. Life has taken on a whole new dimension for me. At the Indian Springs Camp Meeting in Georgia, I gained a better understanding of what happened to me when the Holy Spirit baptized me.

Dr. Hanke and I now conduct prison services in five Kentucky correctional institutions. This gives me a chance to witness to the men with whom I was imprisoned. At my baptism a new ministry was opened up for us at the Camp Nelson home for juvenile boys. We conduct regular services there, and the boys frequently attend our United Methodist Church. I feel that this juvenile home ministry is important because first offenders (age 16-17) are taken here. If they can be redirected here, they will be spared a life of crime later. I am very much indebted to many fine Christian people for giving me a chance. I know now that only Christ has the answer to life’s problems and this is my message to those I contact.

Archive: Christmas 1784

by Steve | Nov 3, 1977 | Archive - 1977

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.