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Church family profile: Methodists
The Methodists — UEEMF
- UEEMFFrance, 19th–20th c.‹
- French MethodismNormandy, 1791‹
- WesleyLondon, 1738‹
- Moravians, Pietism1675–1727‹
- Anglicanism1534‹
- Reformation1517
Methodism takes shape at the heart of Anglicanism with the Oxford “Holy Club”, from 1729. Influenced by the witness of the Moravian Brethren — heirs of Jan Hus and of Lutheran Pietism — John Wesley has an experience of grace at Aldersgate in 1738 that gives the movement a decisive evangelical impetus. Open-air preaching, small groups and practical holiness: Wesley systematises and spreads these evangelistic practices, though he did not invent them all.
Reaching France as early as 1791 by way of the Channel Islands, French Methodism spread to Normandy, the South of France and Alsace. The Union de l’Église évangélique méthodiste de France (UEEMF, Union of the Evangelical Methodist Church of France) carries this heritage forward — and, through the Holiness movement, Methodism would go on to exert a major influence on part of Pentecostalism.
Further background
Spiritual emphasis
Methodism unites God’s grace, personal conversion and sanctification: faith is meant to transform a person’s conduct and service of others, step by step.
A method that became a movement
Wesley organises classes, small groups, itinerant preachers and mutual support. This flexible structure sustains evangelism, training and social action.
A very wide heritage
The Holiness movement and then part of Pentecostalism grew out of the Methodist trunk. Its influence therefore reaches far beyond the churches that bear this name today.
Source of this supplement: UEEMF — ueem.umc-europe.org
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