Back Navigation Menu

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 plaque erected in Aldersgate Street, London, by the Drew Theological Seminary of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Madison, N. J., marks the probable site of John's Wesley's now famous moment of spiritual revelation. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
none

Ask The UMC-FAQs

What is Aldersgate Day?

This day commemorates the day when John Wesley experienced assurance of his salvation.

More
Historic St. George’s United Methodist Church has been called one of the sites all United Methodists should see because it has been a Methodist house of worship continually since 1769. Video image by Jess Warnock, courtesy of United Methodist Communications.
none

Ask The UMC-FAQs

Where was the first Methodist annual conference in America?

Historic St. George's United Methodist Church in Philadelphia hosted the first Methodist conferences in what would become the United States of America.

More

Early Methodism

Back to top