Methodists mark defining moment in church history
By Elliott Wright*
Nov. 16, 2009 | FREDERICA, Del. (UMNS)
Dressed
in period costume, Shirley Still (left) and Shirley Jackson greet
visitors to Barratt's Chapel in Frederica, Del. A UMNS photo by
Elliott Wright, GBGM.
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On a bright November Sunday, 125 United Methodists
gathered to thank and praise God at the spot where, 225 years earlier,
the course of American Methodism took shape.
The setting was Barratt's Chapel at Frederica, Del., the
oldest Methodist Church in the United States originally built as a
church. The Nov. 8, 2009, observance marked an occasion on Nov. 14,
1784, that pointed the way toward forming a distinct denomination in a
lineage that has became The United Methodist Church.
Bishop Peggy A. Johnson of the Philadelphia area
preached at the special service commemorating a meeting between two
early leaders, Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke, who together laid the
organizational foundations and gave U.S. Methodism its strong emphasis
on mission. Asbury is considered the "father of American Methodism" and
Coke the "father of Methodist missions."
Johnson compared the historic Asbury-Coke meeting to the
stones gathered by the Israelites in Joshua 4, as symbols to remind
their children of God's providence in bringing them into a promised
land. "We need to tell the story of Jesus and those who have been rocks
of our faith to the children," she said.
A historic meeting
Phillip Barratt, a farmer, built Barrett's Chapel in
1780 as a meeting place for Methodists scattered across Delaware and
that part of Maryland on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. The
chapel underwent various changes in its first 70 years, but today
remains much as it looked in the 1840s.
Thomas Coke
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A star on the floor represents the traditional spot
when, on that November Sunday in 1784, Asbury and Coke greeted one
another following the first service of Holy Communion ever celebrated
under Methodist auspices in the Americas. This act represented the
separation of Methodists in the former British colonies from the Church
of England (Anglican).
Coke was coming to the new nation as the representative
of Methodist founder John Wesley; Asbury had been in America since
1771, having come as one of the first Methodist missionaries, also sent
by Wesley. They were to be joint "general superintendents" appointed by
Wesley, but Asbury had the idea that the leadership choices should be
voted on by an assembly of the American lay preachers.
That day at Barratt's Chapel they decided to follow
Asbury's vision and call a conference of the preachers for Dec. 24 in
Baltimore. That Christmas Conference, which lasted into early January,
marked the official beginning of the Methodism Episcopal Church, the
earliest forerunner to The United Methodist Church. The denomination
began and has continued as a mission movement.
On that day 225 years ago, Coke and Asbury also agreed
that they would work together to start a college to train clergy and
laity. Cokesbury College opened in Abingdon, Md., the next year, but
did not survive a disastrous fire a few years later.
Francis Asbury
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The anniversary observance
Barratt's Chapel, even with its balcony, seems small
today, rather rustic, with straight, hard benches, and an organ pumped
by foot.
The 2009 service commemorating the Coke-Asbury meeting
was filled with the strains of familiar hymns accompanied by both the
organ, played by Johnson, and a piano. The 20-voice choir of St. Paul
United Methodist Church in nearby Milford sang with conviction.
"Jesus, United by Thy Grace," a hymn by Charles Wesley, was a fitting conclusion to the observation.
The anniversary service was organized by the Commission
on Archives and History of the Peninsula-Delaware Annual Conference,
one of two regional conferences in the Philadelphia Episcopal Area.
Barratt's Chapel is today a shrine maintained by the commission. It is
a Heritage Landmark of the denomination and is listed on the U.S.
National Register of Historic Places.
Asbury and Coke
The meeting of Asbury and Coke 225 years ago at
Barratt's was a defining moment for Methodism in the context of what
was happening in Great Britain and what was then the Confederate States
of America.
Barratt's Chapel in Frederica, Del.,
is the oldest Methodist Church in the
United States originally built as a church.
A UMNS photo by Elliott Wright, GBGM.
|
Methodism began to arrive in Britain's American colonies
in the late 1760s; at the time Wesley sent Asbury and the other early
missionaries, there were fewer than 500 Methodists in all of the
colonies. Meanwhile, in England, Thomas Coke, a clergyman of the Church
of England, had become a leader in the network of Methodist
"societies."
After the Revolutionary War broke out in 1776, most
Anglican clergy, being Loyalists, left the colonists, meaning that
access to the sacraments for Anglicans and Methodists was limited. By
the end of the war in 1783, the other seven missionaries who came with
Asbury also were gone.
Once hostilities were over, Wesley was asked to take
steps to provide ordained clergy for the new nation, especially since
Church of England bishops showed no inclination to dispatch clergy to
the former colonies. In a dramatic move in early 1784, Wesley ordained
clergy for England, Scotland, and America in a break with Anglican
tradition. The two new presbyters sent to the States were Richard
Whatcoat and Thomas Vesey.
Wesley also "laid hands" on Coke—although he was already
a clergyman of the Church of England—naming him as "general
superintendent" in America. This act was later taken to mean that
Wesley had consecrated Coke as bishop. Coke was instructed to ordain
Asbury, then still a lay preacher, who was to be his co-general
superintendent.
On Nov. 14, 1784, Coke, Asbury, and 11 preachers ate
Sunday dinner at the home of Phillip Barratt's widow—the prosperous
farmer had died two weeks earlier—about a mile from the chapel.
Following the meal, Asbury and Coke retired from the others to discuss
the future of their movement in the new country. They agreed to the
idea of calling a general conference in Baltimore at Christmas for lay
preachers to convene.
The 11 preachers present agreed to the plan and one of
them, a youth named Freeborn Garrison, was dispatched to make a huge
circuit carrying the news of the forthcoming Christmas Conference. At
that event in Baltimore, Coke and others ordained Asbury; both Coke and
Asbury were elected as general superintendents, a designation formally
changed to "bishop" by the General Conference of 1787.
*Wright is the information officer of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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