Methodist Episcopal Church in the context of John Wesley

The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in Africa, The Philippines, Europe, and the United States claiming 10 million members, and is a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelicalism. The present denomination was founded in 1968 in Dallas by union of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, and is shaped by the voluntary separation of 25% of the United States churches leading up to the delayed 2020 General Conference held in 2024. The UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley in England, as well as the Great Awakening in the United States. As such, the church's theological orientation is decidedly Wesleyan. It embraces liturgical worship, holiness, and evangelical elements. According to its Book of Discipline, "The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."

The United Methodist Church has a connectional polity, a typical feature of a number of Methodist denominations. It is organized into conferences. The highest level is called the General Conference and is the only organization which may speak officially for the UMC. The church is a member of the World Council of Churches, the World Methodist Council, and other religious associations.

Circuit riders, also known as horse preachers, were clergy assigned to travel around specific geographic territories to minister to settlers and organize congregations. Circuit riders were clergy in the Methodist Episcopal Church and related denominations, although similar itinerant preachers could be found in other faiths as well, particularly among minority faith groups. They were most prominent during the early years of the United States, from 1784–1830, and were part of the Second Great Awakening revival movement.

The Methodist Church was the official name adopted by the Methodist denomination formed in the United States by the reunion on May 10, 1939, of the northern and southern factions of the Methodist Episcopal Church along with the earlier separated Methodist Protestant Church of 1828. The Methodist Episcopal Church had split in 1844 over the issue of slavery and the impending Civil War in America. During the American Civil War, the southern denomination was known briefly as the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America.

Its book of liturgy used for the reunited denomination was The Book of Worship for Church and Home, editions of which were published in 1945 and later revised in 1965. They had two official hymnals, the first being The Methodist Hymnal, published in 1935 and 1939 by the same three church bodies that later became The Methodist Church. It was replaced in 1966 by The Book of Hymns.

The Second Great Awakening was a religious revival during the late 18th to early 19th century in the United States. It spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching and sparked a number of schismatic movements. Revivals were key to the movement and attracted hundreds of converts to new denominations. The Methodist Church used circuit riders to reach people in frontier locations.

The Second Great Awakening led to a period of antebellum social reform and an emphasis on salvation by institutions. The outpouring of religious fervor and revival began in Kentucky and Tennessee in the 1790s and early 1800s among the Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists. New religious movements emerged during the Second Great Awakening, such as Adventism, Dispensationalism, and the Latter Day Saint movement. The Second Great Awakening also led to the founding of several well-known colleges, seminaries, and mission societies.

Aoyama Gakuin University (Japanese: 青山学院大学, Hepburn: Aoyama Gakuin Daigaku; AGU) is a private Christian university in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Originally established in 1874 by missionaries from the Methodist Episcopal Church, it was reconfigured in its current form in 1949 as tertiary component of the Aoyama Gakuin.

The university's undergraduate and graduate programs include courses on literature, law, economics, business, international politics, economics, communication, science, engineering and cultural studies. The university graduate programs include international management, law and professional accounting.

Goucher College (/ˈɡaʊtʃər/ GOW-chər) is a private liberal arts college in Towson, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1885 as a nonsecterian women's college in Baltimore's central district, the college is named for pastor and missionary John F. Goucher, who enlisted local leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church to establish the school's charter. Goucher relocated to its Towson campus in 1953, and became coeducational in 1986, after its long tradition as a women's college.

Goucher grants BA and BS degrees in a range of disciplines across 31 majors and 39 minors. Goucher is one of only two colleges in the United States to integrate a study abroad experience into its undergraduate curriculum requirements. Goucher is a member of the Landmark Conference and competes in the NCAA's Division III in lacrosse, tennis, soccer, volleyball, basketball, and horseback riding. Goucher also offers a postbaccalaureate premedical program, master's programs in the arts and humanities, and professional development courses in writing and education. As of 2023, Goucher enrolls approximately 1,100 undergraduates and 900 post-graduates.

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MEC, S; also Methodist Episcopal Church South) was the American Methodist denomination resulting from the 19th-century split over the issue of slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC). Disagreement on this issue had been increasing in strength for decades between churches of the Northern and Southern United States; in 1845 it resulted in a schism at the General Conference of the MEC held in Louisville, Kentucky.

This body maintained its own polity for nearly 100 years until the formation in 1939 of the Methodist Church, uniting the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with the older Methodist Episcopal Church and much of the Methodist Protestant Church, which had separated from Methodist Episcopal Church in 1828. The Methodist Church in turn merged in 1968 with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the United Methodist Church, one of the largest and most widely spread Christian denominations in America.

The Southern Methodist Church is a Methodist denomination of Protestant Christianity. The church maintains headquarters in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

The church was formed in 1940 by conservative members of the former Methodist Episcopal Church, South, which in 1939 had reunited with the Methodist Episcopal Church to form the Methodist Church.

John B. Denton (July 28, 1806 – May 24, 1841) also shown in secondary references as John Bunard Denton and John Bunyan Denton, was a Methodist minister, lawyer, soldier, and political candidate for whom both Denton County, Texas and the city of Denton, Texas, were named. He converted to Methodism soon after meeting his future wife, Mary Greenlee Stewart, who also taught him how to read and write. He later became a captain and was known for his battles against Native Americans. He died in 1841 after the Battle of Village Creek, an attack on a Keechi village in adjacent Tarrant County.

Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920. Located in the city's University Hill neighborhood, east and southeast of downtown Syracuse, the large campus features an eclectic mix of architecture, ranging from nineteenth-century Romanesque Revival to contemporary buildings. Syracuse University is organized into 13 schools and colleges and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".

Syracuse University athletic teams, the Orange, participate in 20 intercollegiate sports. SU is a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) for all NCAA Division I athletics, except for the men's rowing and women's ice hockey teams. SU is also a member of the Eastern College Athletic Conference. Alumni, faculty, and affiliates include former President Joe Biden, three Nobel Prize laureates, one Fields Medalist, thirty-six Olympic Medalists, thirteen Pulitzer Prize recipients, Academy Award winners, Emmy Award winners, Grammy Award winners, two Rhodes Scholars, seven Marshall Scholars, governors, and members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Samuel Porter Jones, best known as Sam P. Jones, (October 16, 1847 – October 15, 1906) was an American lawyer and businessman from Georgia who became a prominent Methodist Episcopal Church revivalist preacher across the Southern United States. In his sermons, he preached that alcohol and idleness were sinful. He was known for his admonition, "Quit Your Meanness."

Northwestern University (NU) is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851, it is the oldest chartered university in Illinois. Northwestern was initially affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church but later became non-sectarian. By 1900, the university was the third-largest university in the United States, after Michigan and Harvard. Northwestern became a founding member of the Big Ten Conference in 1896 and joined the Association of American Universities in 1917.

Northwestern is composed of eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools in the fields of management, law, journalism, engineering, medicine, and others. As of 2024, the university had an endowment of $15.6 billion, an annual budget of around $3.3 billion, and research funding of over $1 billion. The university fields 19 intercollegiate athletic teams, the Northwestern Wildcats, which compete in the NCAA Division I in the Big Ten Conference.

The University of Nanking (金陵大學) was a private university in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. It was sponsored by a consortium of American churches, including the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Disciples of Christ, and the Presbyterian Church. The university effectively become defunct in 1952, following the 1952 reorganization of Chinese higher education by the central government of the newly established People's Republic of China.

The Methodist Protestant Church (MPC) is a Methodist denomination of Christianity that is based in the United States. It was formed in 1828 by former members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, being Wesleyan in doctrine and worship, but adopting congregational governance.

A majority of the Methodist Protestants merged with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1939, and for that reason, the historic Methodist Protestant Church is regarded as one of the predecessors of the present-day United Methodist Church. The Mississippi MPC delegation to the 1939 Uniting Conference withdrew from the proceedings, due to worries about developing liberal elements within the UMC; most of the congregations in the Mississippi conference reorganized and continued as the Methodist Protestant Church in name, doctrine and practice.

Francis Asbury (August 20 or 21, 1745 – March 31, 1816) was a British-American Methodist minister who became one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. During his 45 years in the colonies and the newly independent United States, he devoted his life to ministry, traveling on horseback and by carriage thousands of miles to those living on the frontier.

Asbury spread Methodism in British colonial America and the United States as part of the Second Great Awakening. He also founded several schools during his lifetime, although his own formal education was limited. His journal is valuable to scholars for its account of frontier society, with references to many towns and villages in Colonial America. Along with John and Charles Wesley, Asbury is often celebrated as one of the founders of the Methodist Church.

The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in Africa, the Philippines, Europe, and the United States claiming 10 million members, and is a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelicalism. The present denomination was founded in 1968 in Dallas by union of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, and is shaped by the voluntary separation of 25% of the United States churches leading up to the delayed 2020 General Conference held in 2024. The UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley in England, as well as the Great Awakening in the United States. As such, the church's theological orientation is decidedly Wesleyan. It embraces liturgical worship, holiness, and evangelical elements. According to its Book of Discipline, "The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."

The United Methodist Church has a connectional polity, a typical feature of a number of Methodist denominations. It is organized into conferences. The highest level is called the General Conference and is the only organization which may speak officially for the UMC. The church is a member of the World Council of Churches, the World Methodist Council, and other religious associations.