UMC -United Methodist Church
The United Methodist Church is the largest Methodist denomination, and the second largest Protestant denomination, in the United States. Like all mainline denominations, it has evangelical elements.[2][5] In the United States, it ranks as the largest mainline church, second largest Protestant church (after the Southern Baptist Convention), and third largest Christian Church overall. In as of 2007[update] worldwide membership was about 12 million members: 8.0 million in the United States,[6] 3.5 million in Africa, Asia and Europe.[7] It is a member church of the World Council of Churches, the World Methodist Council, and other religious associations. It remains the only Christian denomination or body to have congregations in every county or parish in the United States.[citation needed]
The United Methodist Church traces its main root to the Methodist Movement of John Wesley in England in the 1700s.[8][9] The first official organization in the United States occurred in Baltimore in 1784 with the formation of the Methodist Episcopal Church at the Christmas Conference, with Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke as the leaders.[10][11]
The church traces its roots to "The Holy Club" at Oxford University formed by Anglican minister John Wesley and Charles Wesley in 1729. Members of the Society were said to have to lived by "method."[12]
The church in its present form traces its roots to the founding of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland in 1784. It grew rapidly in the young country as it employed circuit riders, many of whom were laymen, to travel the mostly rural nation by horseback to preach the Gospel and to establish churches until there was scarcely any village in the United States without a Methodist presence. The Methodist Episcopal Church rapidly became the largest Protestant denomination in the country, with 4000 circuit riders by 1844.
In the more than 220 years since 1784, the Methodist Episcopal Church, like many other Protestant denominations, has seen a number of divisions and mergers. In 1830, the Methodist Protestant Church split from the Methodist Episcopal Church over the issue of laity having a voice and vote in the administration of the church, insisting that clergy should not be the only ones to have any determination in how the church was to be operated. In 1844, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church split into two conferences because of tensions over slavery and the power of bishops in the denomination.
The two General Conferences, Methodist Episcopal Church (or northern section) and Methodist Episcopal Church, South remained separate until the 1939 merger of these two denominations plus a third, the Methodist Protestant Church, the resulting church being known as The Methodist Church.
On April 23, 1968, The United Methodist Church was created when The Evangelical Uni