wfn.org | May 4, 2000 GC-012

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Delegates honor 200-year heritage of predecessor churches

CLEVELAND (UMNS) - The heritage of 200 years of ministry by two predecessor
bodies of today's United Methodist Church was celebrated May 4 during the
denomination's General Conference.

Text and pictures were used to highlight milestones of that heritage: the
"great meeting" in Isaac Long's barn on the outskirts of Lancaster, Pa., in
1767, where Phillip William Otterbein and Martin Boehm met; the formation of
the United Brethren in Christ in September 1800 on a farm near Frederick,
Md.; the organization at about the same time of the Evangelical Association;
the uniting of those two bodies in 1946 to create the Evangelical United
Brethren Church (EUB); and the formation in 1968 of the United Methodist
Church.

Both the United Brethren and Evangelical Association specialized in ministry
with refugee Germans fleeing oppression in Europe. Their work paralleled
that of Francis Asbury among English-speaking citizens of the new nation.

Boehm, a Mennonite, and Otterbein, a German Reformed pastor, were elected
bishops of the United Brethren in Christ at the meeting in Maryland.  

At about the same time, Lutheran farmer and tile-maker Jacob Albright
started a second church, the Evangelical Association. Albright, who lived a
few miles west of Lancaster, Pa., had been converted under Methodist
teaching.

The 200th observance, held at the Cleveland Convention Center, was directed
by Jim Nelson, a professor at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio,
and director of the Center for the Evangelical United  Brethren Heritage.

As part of the commemoration, the United Methodist Publishing House produced
a hardbound historical sampler of the EUB church. The volume was presented
to all delegates, along with a commemorative issue of the
Telescope-Messenger, the semiannual publication of the center.

It is hard for United Methodists today to grasp the desperation of the
German refugees, according to the multimedia presentation. "We can make use
of the heritage left us by ministry two centuries ago," the presenters
declared.

The ceremony was concluded with the singing, partly in German, of the
familiar hymn "Jesus Loves Me" under the leadership of Bishop George W.
Bashore, a member of the Evangelical United Brethren Church at the l968
union with the Methodist Church.
						# # # 
-- Robert Lear

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United Methodist News Service
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