United Methodism's Well-Organized History part 1

Our basic gifts are spiritual, but anybody sizing up The United Methodist Church would instantly recognize its penchant for careful organization. It is one of the banes and blessings of our existence. But frankly that organizational tidiness can suffocate as well as liberate, and can be an idol if valued for its own sake. Wesley would have agreed.

Wesley was in fact an organizational genius. Bear in mind that in the early years Methodism was not a "denomination," as we use the term. It was a movement among people who were nominally a part of parishes throughout the established Church of England. Wesley took the vast outpouring of spirit and energy of the movement and gave it institutional structure. The Methodists were expected to be baptized into and receive communion from parish churches, but the heart of Wesley's structure was the "class meeting." Initially, the organizational structure was to provide face-to-face settings in which the Methodists could be known, loved, and held accountable by one another for their service to Christ. The class meetings were small cell groups of about a dozen people. They met weekly in homes with their class leaders. In turn, the class leaders received training and had meetings. Increasingly the movement involved lay preachers who received training and supervision from Wesley himself and were gathered annually for conferences. Those who did this work full-time were appointed to the responsibilities by Wesley.

The structure, as it evolved, was not particularly democratic except, perhaps, in the sense that everybody could be heard. In evaluating this from a contemporary perspective, we need to remember that most of the early Methodists were neither well-educated nor experienced in organization. The movement was a first opportunity for many to begin to acquire organizational skills. In any event, the structure combined the strengths of broad institutional connections--the "Conference"--with the intimacy of the class setting in which each person's own spiritual journey was valued and nurtured. That combination of organization at the broadest and the most intimate levels provided for stability and growth. People might first be attracted to the movement through great revival preaching, often outdoors; then they would be drawn into a class meeting where the participation could be solidified into enduring commitment.

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