As a church and as a group of people, United Methodists were forged through the American experience and experiment. Given the present social problems and cultural shifts facing the United States, The United Methodist Church is faced with similar massive challenges.
When Francis Asbury began his ministry in America, Methodists represented between 1 and 3 percent of the total population. Our forebearers were competing for people’s hearts and minds in a culture that wasn’t centered around churches. Asbury, along with a multitude of followers and other leaders, built a movement organized around circuits and guided by apprenticing young pastors and conferences. They assembled to train, guide, and find a way forward as a new body of believers. As the United States matured, so did our organization. By the Civil War one-third of Americans were Methodists. By the late 1800s and early 1900s we became one of the dominant forces in the religious landscape, and we began building institutions.
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