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Our Shared Roots The United Methodist Church shares a common history and heritage with other Methodist and Wesleyan bodies. The lives and ministries of John Wesley (1703–1791) and of his brother, Charles (1707–1788), mark the origin of their common roots.
Both of the Wesley brothers had transforming religious experiences in May 1738. In the years following, the Wesleys succeeded in leading a lively renewal movement in the Church of England. As the Methodist movement grew, it became apparent that their ministry would spread to the American colonies as some Methodists made the exhausting and hazardous Atlantic voyage to the New World.
Organized Methodism in America began as a lay movement. Among its earliest leaders were Robert Strawbridge, an immigrant farmer who organized work about 1760 in Maryland and Virginia, Philip Embury and his cousin, Barbara Heck, who began work in New York in 1766, and Captain Thomas Webb, whose labors were instrumental in Methodist beginnings in Philadelphia in 1767.
| The Twenty-Two Questions Members of John Wesley's Holy Club Asked
Themselves These Questions In Their Daily Devotions Each Day: Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression than I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite? Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate? Do I confidentially pass on to another what I was told to me in confidence? Can I be trusted? Am I a slave to dress, friends, work or habits? Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying? Did the Bible live in me today? Do I give it time to speak to me every day? Am I enjoying prayer? When did I last speak to someone else of my faith? Do I pray about the money I spend? Do I get to bed on time and get up on time? Do I disobey God in anything? Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy.? Am I defeated in any part of my life? Am I jealous impure, critical, irritable, touchy or distrusting? How do I spend my spare time? Am I proud? Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican? Is there anyone I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? I If so, what am I doing about it? Do I grumble or complain constantly? Is Christ real to me?
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