wfn.org | Archives, history Web site big hit

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

June 28, 1999	News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.    10-71B{355}

By Robert Lear*

SAINT PAUL, Minn. (UMNS) -- A Web site devoted to United Methodist history
is 
proving to be a hit.

 "There is little doubt that our Web site has proven to be one of the most
visible and popular means of reaching people interested in our ministry and
the history of the United Methodist Church and its predecessors," the Rev.
Charles Yrigoyen, Jr. told the denomination's Commission on Archives and
History meeting June 24-25 here.  Yrigoyen is the commission's top staff
executive. 

Records show the number of  hits on the site grew from 300 in the month of
September 1977 to more than 8,000 in March of this year.  "On average in
March 1999 we had 271 user sessions a day," Yrigoyen said.  "That's
impressive."

The site, www.gcah.org,  provides information about the work of the
commission as well as items of history.  Information carried on the site is
expected to grow during the next several years.

The commission meeting here, held in connection with the fourth convocation
of the United Methodist Historical Society, was the final session before the
church's General Conference May 2-12, 2000.  Several changes in the Book of
Discipline were approved for reference to the top law-making assembly to be
held in Cleveland.

Among other things, a change in the date for marking Heritage Sunday is
being requested.  Instead of the present late April date, an observance on
the Sunday nearest Aldersgate Day is being sought.  Aldersgate Day
commemorates the "heart-warming experience" of John Wesley during a service
in London's Aldersgate Street that led to founding of the Methodist
movement.

The history commission presented its 1999 Distinguished Service Award to the
Rev. Richard P. Heitzenrater, a Wesley scholar and researcher who is
professor of church history and Wesley studies at Duke University Divinity
School, Durham, N.C.  Among other achievements,  Heitzenrater is widely
known for "breaking the code" of John Wesley's diaries kept in a form 
of shorthand that had baffled scholars for almost two centuries.

In an address on the theme of "Holiness and Splendid Ignorance -- John
Wesley and Education," Heitzenrater said that when Wesley founded Kingswood
school in 1748 he was addressing what he believed were serious deficiencies
in British education of that day.

Kingswood, said Heitzenrater, was noted for its strong element of religion
and rigor of its schedule.  "Wesley's approach focused on God but relied on
people to carry out God's will."

Events surrounding the founding of Kingswood were dramatized in a short play
written by R. Rex Stephenson and Mike Trochim, faculty members at Ferrum
(Va.) College, and presented by students at Hamline University in St. Paul.

The award presentation and drama were part of the program of the historical
convocation held on the Hamline campus.

The Commission on Archives and History will present its 2000 Distinguished
Service Award to the Rev. Thomas Langford, theologian and historian at Duke.

In 2000, the commission will meet Sept. 21-22 in Baltimore in connection
with an observance of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the United
Brethren in Christ Church, a predecessor body of the United Methodist
Church.

# # #

*Lear is a retired staff member of United Methodist News Service.

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