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History

Ask The UMC: History of The United Methodist Church. Ask The UMC is a service of United Methodist Communications. Photo by Kathleen Barry, United Methodist Communications.

The United Methodist Church was created over 50 years ago when The Evangelical United Brethren Church and The Methodist Church united to form a new denomination. 

But the early beginnings of Methodism date back to 1736 when John and Charles Wesley came to the New World to spread the movement they began as students in England.

Learn more about the roots of our denomination and the developments that led to the church of today.

A portrait of Ida B. Wells-Barnett circa 1893. Photo by Sallie Garrity, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; graphic by Laurens Glass, United Methodist Communications.
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Ask The UMC-FAQs

Who are Black women pioneers in US Methodism? (Part 1)

Ida Wells Barnett was a pioneering journalist and Mary McLeod Bethune a pioneering educator.

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United Methodist Bishop Leontine Turpeau Current Kelly. Sepia photo by Mike DuBose, UM News. Graphic by Laurens Glass, United Methodist Communications.
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Ask The UMC-FAQs

Who are Black women pioneers in US Methodism? (Part 2)

Sally A. Crenshaw and Leontine T. C. Kelly are 20th century clergywomen who paved the way for women and Black Methodists in local and churchwide leadership.

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Early Methodism

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