John Wesley and the History of Methodism — Unit 6: American Methodism: Asbury, the Circuit Riders, and the Christmas Conference (1784)

Key Verse

"And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!'" (Romans 10:15, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Describe how Methodism first came to the American colonies through lay people and then through preachers sent by John Wesley.

2. Explain why the American Revolution created a crisis for Methodist preaching, the sacraments and ordination.

3. Describe what happened at the Christmas Conference in Baltimore in 1784 and what it created.

4. Explain how the circuit system and the circuit riders carried the Methodist message across a growing country.

5. State the objections raised against Methodist leadership and revival methods, and give the Wesleyan answer to each.

The Voice of This Course

This course is written from inside the Wesleyan tradition, for students who belong to it. It is conservative and evangelical. When it says "we" or "our tradition," it means the Methodist and Wesleyan-Holiness churches that hold the Bible to be the Word of God, the final rule of faith and life, and that teach salvation by grace through faith for all people. Other Christians and many historians see some of these events differently. We state their views fairly and then give our answer. Scripture says, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

Why This Unit Matters

In the first five units we followed John Wesley and his helpers in England. In this unit we cross the Atlantic. The story of American Methodism matters for pastors in Mexico, Cuba and many other lands for two reasons. First, the churches that sent missionaries south and across the sea were mainly the American Methodist churches that grew out of the events in this unit. Second, the way American Methodists organized themselves, with travelling preachers, small groups and a connected church, is a pattern that any small church can learn from today.

Methodism Comes to America

Methodism did not come to America first through bishops or officials. It came through ordinary believers who moved there and kept their faith. In the 1760s several lay people began Methodist work. Robert Strawbridge, an Irish immigrant, preached and gathered people in Maryland. In New York, Philip Embury, also from Ireland, began to preach in 1766, urged on by his cousin Barbara Heck, who reminded the Methodists around her that they must not let their faith grow cold. A British army officer, Captain Thomas Webb, also preached with great effect in the colonies. These were laypeople, and God used them.

The societies that formed asked Wesley for help. In 1769 he sent Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmore to America. In 1771 Francis Asbury and Richard Wright followed. Wesley gave his preachers a clear purpose: they were to win people to Christ and to form them into disciples, not to build an empire.

Francis Asbury

Francis Asbury was born in England in 1745 into a working family. He was converted and became a Methodist preacher while he was young. When Wesley asked in 1771 for volunteers for America, Asbury offered himself. He arrived in Philadelphia in the autumn of that year. He never married, and he gave his life to travelling, preaching and organizing. He died in 1816 in Virginia, still on the road.

Asbury believed that Methodism would not thrive if preachers sat in the cities. He pressed his preachers to go out to the scattered settlements, where people had no church. His own Journal is a primary source from his hand and shows his discipline, his love for the lost, and his frank weariness. When the Revolutionary War began, almost all the English preachers returned home. Asbury chose to remain, even though his connection to England made his position difficult. He sometimes had to limit his travel during the war. His decision to stay earned him the trust of American Methodists. Wesley, for his part, had publicly opposed American independence, and this made the loyalty of his preachers in America a sensitive matter.

The Crisis of the War Years

The war brought a serious problem. Before independence, American Methodists were societies within the Church of England. They were not a separate church. They received baptism and the Lord's Supper from Anglican clergy when they could. When the war came, many Anglican clergy left, and the Methodists in many places had no minister who could administer the sacraments. People were being converted, but their children could not be baptized by a properly ordained minister, and the Lord's Supper was seldom available.

This pressure divided the preachers. Some in the South wanted to administer the sacraments themselves. Others, with Asbury, wanted to wait and keep faith with Wesley and with the Anglican order he valued. For a time the unity of the movement was in danger. The question was not trivial. Our tradition teaches that the sacraments are real means of grace, and a church that cannot celebrate them lacks something God has given for the health of His people.

Wesley's Answer in 1784

After the war ended, the matter had to be settled. Wesley sought help from the Church of England for ordained clergy for America, and it was not given. In 1784 Wesley acted. He ordained Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey as elders for the work in America. He also set apart Thomas Coke, an ordained Anglican clergyman who was already one of his closest helpers, as a superintendent to oversee the work with Asbury. He sent them with a revised service book, called The Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America, based on the Book of Common Prayer, and with a shorter set of Articles of Religion, reduced from the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England.

The objection

This act was disputed then and is still debated today. Wesley was a priest of the Church of England, and in that church only bishops ordained. Many Anglicans said he had no right to ordain. His own brother Charles was deeply grieved, because he wanted Methodism to stay within the Church of England. Some historians say the act was in effect the beginning of a separate church, whatever Wesley said, while others stress that Wesley himself believed he was not leaving the Church of England.

Our answer

Wesley acted from a conviction he had held for years. Reading the New Testament, he was persuaded that the offices of elder and overseer, which our English Bibles sometimes call "bishop," belonged to the same ministry in the early church. In Titus 1:5-7, Paul tells Titus to appoint elders and then speaks of the same men as overseers. In Acts 14:23, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in every church. So Wesley believed that an elder, rightly called, could ordain for a land where the church had no one else to do it. He also argued from necessity. Thousands of people in America were without the sacraments, and there was no other way to supply them. We do not say that every detail of the arrangement was perfect. We say that Wesley acted from conscience and from Scripture, for the sake of souls, and that the Lord blessed the church that followed.

The Christmas Conference of 1784

Coke, Whatcoat and Vasey arrived in America in the autumn of 1784. Asbury and Coke called the preachers together. They met in Baltimore, beginning on December 24, 1784, in a chapel on Lovely Lane. The meeting is known as the Christmas Conference. It ran into early January 1785.

At this conference the Methodists in America formally organized themselves as a church, the Methodist Episcopal Church. The word "Episcopal" here means that the church was led by superintendents, who soon took the title of bishop. Wesley disliked the title, but it came into use.

The conference did several important things.

• It accepted Coke and Asbury as general superintendents. Asbury insisted that he would not serve merely because Wesley appointed him. He wished the American preachers to elect him. They did. He was then ordained over several days, first as deacon, then as elder, then as superintendent. This shows a feature of the American church: leaders were chosen with the consent of the preachers.

• It received the Sunday Service and the Articles of Religion as the church's worship and doctrinal standard. The Articles of Religion remain a core document for many Wesleyan bodies today.

• It adopted rules for the preachers and the people, which became the Discipline.

• It spoke against slavery. The conference adopted strong rules requiring Methodists to free those they held in bondage. Those rules met such resistance that they were suspended within a few months. This is a sad part of our story. The church knew what was right and did not hold to it. Unit 8 returns to this subject.

The Circuit Riders

The heart of American Methodist growth was the circuit system. A circuit was a group of preaching places, often many miles apart. A travelling preacher rode a circuit on horseback, preaching almost daily, and returned to each place every few weeks. The preachers were appointed to a new circuit regularly, so that no place depended on one man. Between his visits, local preachers, exhorters, class leaders and stewards, all lay people, kept the work going. Every convert was joined to a class, a small group that met weekly to pray and to watch over one another. This was Wesley's method from Unit 4, now stretched across a continent.

The circuit riders were often young, single men, poorly paid, who faced rivers, winter weather, sickness and danger. Many died early. Peter Cartwright, one of the best known of them in the early nineteenth century, wrote about the life in his autobiography. Their preaching was plain and direct. It called all people to repent, taught that Christ died for all, and promised that every believer may know that he is forgiven. This message of free grace for all fitted a land of ordinary people, many of whom had little schooling and no church.

Alongside the circuits came the camp meeting. At the great gathering at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1801, led mainly by Presbyterians but joined by Methodists and Baptists, thousands came to hear preaching over several days. Methodists took up the camp meeting as an instrument of revival. Within a few decades the Methodist Episcopal Church had become one of the largest churches in the new nation.

Another Way of Explaining the Growth

Historians offer several explanations for the speed of Methodist growth. Some stress social causes: a mobile population, a lack of established churches on the frontier, and a style of leadership that gave a voice to ordinary people. These explanations are useful, and the circuit system certainly suited the land. But our tradition teaches that human means are not the whole story. The Lord used these means, as He used the roads of the Roman Empire to carry the gospel in the first century. We hold that lives were changed by the preaching of repentance and faith, and by the grace of God that reaches every person. The Methodists did not succeed because they were clever. Many suffered and died because they believed what they preached.

Objections to Methodist Ways

Objection 1: Bishops and appointed preachers are not biblical. Baptists and Congregationalists have taught that each local church should govern itself and call its own pastor, and that a system of bishops sending preachers has no New Testament warrant.

Our answer. The New Testament does not give one rigid pattern of church government. It shows apostles overseeing many churches, Titus appointing elders, and Paul writing to churches as a group. Methodist connection fits that picture of churches who share a ministry and watch over each other. We respect congregational churches and do not condemn them. But we hold that a connected church, with accountable oversight, serves the gospel well, especially where many congregations are small and new. Our bishops were from the start servants and travellers, not lords. Peter wrote of shepherding "nor as being lords over those entrusted to you" (1 Peter 5:3).

Objection 2: Revival meetings are driven by emotion and excess. Critics said that the camp meetings produced weeping, shouting and strange bodily effects, and that these were human excitement.

Our answer. We admit that some excesses occurred, as they have in every revival. Wesley himself insisted that every experience be tested by Scripture and by its fruit, a changed life and a growing love for God and neighbor. A feeling is not proof of grace, but the lack of any feeling is not proof of safety. The test is the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23.

Pastoral Application

A pastor in a rural area leads four small congregations that are far from each other. He is tired, and he feels that none of them receives enough care. Two of the groups meet only when he can arrive.

The Methodist pattern gives him help. First, he should not carry the work alone. He can choose faithful believers in each place and train them as class leaders and lay preachers, so that the church does not stop when he is away. Second, he should set a regular rhythm, so that each place knows when he will come. Third, he should keep the people in small groups for prayer and mutual care between his visits. Fourth, he should keep the Lord's Supper and baptism at the center of his visits, since the early Methodists suffered when these were missing. Finally, he should remember that the Lord sends laborers: "Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest" (Matthew 9:38).

Summary

Methodism came to America in the 1760s through lay people such as Robert Strawbridge, Philip Embury and Barbara Heck, and then through preachers sent by Wesley, including Francis Asbury, who arrived in 1771 and remained through the Revolution. The war left the Methodist societies without ordained ministers for the sacraments. In 1784 Wesley ordained elders and set apart Thomas Coke as superintendent. He also sent a revised service book and Articles of Religion. At the Christmas Conference in Baltimore, beginning on December 24, 1784, the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized, with Asbury elected and ordained alongside Coke. The conference also adopted strong rules against slavery that were soon suspended. The circuit riders, class meetings and camp meetings carried the message across the country. Critics objected to Wesley's ordinations, to bishops and to revival excesses. Our tradition answers from Scripture, necessity and the fruit of changed lives, and gives the glory to God.

Further Reading

• Francis Asbury, Journal, a primary source.

• John Wesley, Journal, for his own account of the movement.

• The Articles of Religion of the Methodist Episcopal Church (1784), a primary source.

• John Wesley, Sermons, for the doctrine the circuit riders preached.

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