The Methodist movement was initially a revivalist movement within the Anglican church.  The movement was made up of unordained lay preachers who led small groups called bands, classes, and societies.  The expectation was that Methodists would participate in the life of the Anglican church.  But this expectation became fraught when the Anglican church left the United States after the American Revolution. Methodist societies began to function like churches, but they had no clergy, just circuit riding lay preachers.  Unable to get the Anglican church to send clergymen or ordain his lay preachers, John Wesley took matters into his own hands (we’ll learn more about that next week).  He dispatched Anglican clergyman and Methodist preacher, Thomas Coke to America to set up a new denomination and turn the Methodist movement into the Methodist Episcopal Church.  In November of 1784, Coke shared his plans with France Asbury and the men had only six weeks to organize the first Conference of the MEC.  Freeborn Garrettson, one of the first American born Methodist preachers, was the lay preacher for the society at Barratt’s Chapel in Delaware, where Coke ran into Asbury and discussed plans for the Conference.  Garrettson took to the roads and in just six weeks managed to track down most, if not all, of the lay preachers in America, such that 86 would be in attendance for the Conference which would begin on Christmas Eve.  Riding about 1,200 miles in just over a month, Garrettson would earn the nickname, “The Paul Revere of Methodism.”

We’ll spend the month of December learning more about the ten-day-long Christmas Conference, the people involved, and why it matters.  I often wonder at the evangelistic fervor of the circuit riders like Freeborn Garrettson.  What would it look like to be such a dedicated messenger today? Evangelism often gets a bad reputation from a particular brand of Christianity that tends to be small minded, exclusive, judgmental, and right wing.  I find myself getting very turned off by that kind of evangelism, maybe even a little angry.  But am I not called to be an evangelist, too?  Is it not also my responsibility to go tell it on the mountain?  What is the good news I am to tell?  I believe you and I are called to be the beautiful feet that go out and spread the good  news, a gospel that awakens people to justice and goodness in this world, a gospel that awakens people to their inherent self-worth as the children of God, a gospel that resists evil and oppression. I’m looking to spread the news of a gospel that actually sets people free instead of trapping them.  I’d like to have the resolve of Freeborn Garrettson, who rode without question or complaint out of the conviction that establishing the Methodist Church in America was crucial.  I’d like the resolve to believe that the Methodist Church still matters.