History

Ask The UMC: History of The United Methodist Church. Ask The UMC is a service of United Methodist Communications. Photo by Kathleen Barry, United Methodist Communications.

The United Methodist Church was created over 50 years ago when The Evangelical United Brethren Church and The Methodist Church united to form a new denomination. 

But the early beginnings of Methodism date back to 1736 when John and Charles Wesley came to the New World to spread the movement they began as students in England.

Learn more about the roots of our denomination and the developments that led to the church of today.

Graphic by Taylor Burton Edwards, United Methodist Information Service.

Bishop Dionisio Deista Alejandro was the first native Filipino bishop of The Methodist Church of the Philippines.

The first woman among the Methodists to graduate from seminary, Anna Oliver advocated for full clergy rights for women. Original image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; graphic by Laurens Glass, UM News.

Anna Oliver, a pioneer in Methodism, contributed to the early church by spreading Methodism across colonial America, particularly in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

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