John Wesley (1703-91) was a contemporary of Benjamin Franklin (1706-90.) They were born within three years of each other and died only a year apart. Both had a profound impact on American history. Ben Franklin invented such things as swimming fins, the lightning rod, and bifocals. John Wesley, who lived most of his life in England, invented the Annual Conference. I attended the latest iteration of Wesley’s Annual Conference this past week in Peoria, Illinois... and while there I wore an updated version of Franklin’s bifocals to read all the material we needed to wade through. Thank you: John and Ben.
Wesley was a trouble maker… and a bit of a grouch. Everything seemed to irritate him. He couldn’t even stand to live with his own wife. Franklin, on the other hand, not only loved his own wife, he loved dozens of women who were NOT his wife… quite the schmoozer.
But back to Wesley. He thought the Church of England was a disgrace and needed to change. He also thought that English society was too materialistic and violent… and also needed to change. Furthermore, Wesley thought people could do better for themselves… and he made up a specific list of ways individuals could change. John Wesley was a reformer: reforming the society, the church, and the individual. He was also a brilliant Bible Scholar, curious about everything in the world, an unparalleled organizer, a prolific writer, a persuasive speaker, and fearless.
In 1739 (when George Washington was only 7 years old) Wesley organized several “Methodist Societies” in and around London. They upset both the established church and the cultured elite. These “societies” were small groups who studied Wesley’s writings, gathered regularly for conversation and prayer, and sent “preachers” out to persuade others to join their band and lend their support to all the reforming.
Wesley selected unlikely leaders for his movement, people who often had limited education and social connection. After about 5 years of deploying these preachers and leaders, Wesley realized that they needed some education and guidance. And so the first Methodist Annual Conference was held in London in 1744. He wanted his preachers to get the message right, the Bible right, and the moral teachings right.
At that first Annual Conference, Wesley wrote out several “questions” and insisted that his preachers know the right answers. That Annual Conference consisted entirely of Wesley introducing the questions and following up with speeches giving the answers. As Wesley met with his preachers in subsequent years, the “answers” he gave to his own questions were written into what eventually would be called “The Book of Discipline.”
In other words, the first annual conferences consisted of John Wesley telling everyone what to think, what to do, and where to go.
In time, however, the movement spread to the newly formed United States, outgrowing the aging Wesley’s reach. He tried to control the Methodist movement in the U.S., but was out of touch with the circumstances his preachers were encountering in the new country. Consequently, in 1784, a group of Methodist preachers, against Wesley’s preferences and without his presence, met in a conference in Baltimore.
Wesley's American followers wanted to form a new denomination. Wesley, an Englishman, never wanted Methodism to be a church on its own. He was an Anglican priest (Church of England/ Episcopalian) and only wanted Methodism to reform the Church of England, not break from it.
American Methodists, on the other hand, were in a quandary. They didn’t mind agitating and poking at the Church of England... but the American Revolution had caused many Anglican Churches to close shop and head back to England. There weren't many Anglican churches left to reform… and in many parts of the new nation, no churches whatsoever. The American Methodists believed they had to BE a church and not merely lobby within a church.
And so, in 1784, on Christmas Day, in Baltimore, Maryland, a group of preachers met in conference, not to obey the commands of John Wesley, but to connive their own strategy for a more effective Methodist movement. With Wesley’s grudging assent, and a rogue ordination of several American pastors, the Methodist denomination was born.
It was the early custom of Methodist preachers to meet annually in conference, somewhere along the eastern shore. They would worship, share fellowship, and talk strategy for expanding their mission. Their leaders were referred to as “bishops” and given authority to deploy those same preachers to various mission fields. The appointments to churches and mission fields were made for a year at a time, a practice that still continues.
But as the Methodist movement expanded, a new Western Annual Conference was created, covering everything west of the Alleghenies. At the meeting of the 1803 Western Annual Conference in Mt. Gevizim, Kentucky, the bishop sent the first pastor to what would later become Illinois. His name was Benjamin Young, a young man in his early twenties. After arriving in Illinois, his horse was stolen. He pursued the thieves on foot and eventually recovered his horse. Illinois at that time had five Methodist “classes” (scattered around southern Illinois) and no church buildings. Young went from class to class, preached, and tried to expand the movement.
The young preacher was expelled, however, after his year of preaching in Illinois. We are not sure why. According to a letter written by his brother, the bishop accused him of “improprieties.” During his year on the circuit, Young married Sallie Gillhan of Edwardsville, Illinois.
The first Methodist building in Illinois was a simple log cabin built south of Edwardsville, in what is now Glen Carbon, Illinois. It was called “Bethel Chapel.” The building soon fell into disrepair and disuse and was torn down. In 1985, however, the conference helped build New Bethel just a short distance from where the original building stood. It was called “Glen Carbon New Bethel United Methodist Church," the place where I was appointed to serve in 1988. I was pastor there for 13 years.
The churches in the Illinois territory were once part of the Western Annual Conference. And when that conference got too big, the Illinois churches were included in the Tennessee Annual Conference, then the Kentucky Annual Conference, then the Missouri Annual Conference.
In 1817, the Missouri Annual Conference met at Bethel Chapel. The meeting was scheduled to last for several days, but torrential rains hit that week, the roof leaked badly, the preachers adjourned several days early, and everyone went home.
The first Illinois Annual Conference was established in 1824. By the mid 1900s, there were three Annual Conferences in Illinois: Northern, Central, and Southern.
Methodist Annual conferences now include laity, women, people of all races, and a variety of languages. But that wasn't always so.
The language group that was most excluded at first were the German speaking people of the U.S. This was not an insignificant number of people, as even today, the European country with the most descendants in the U.S. is Germany.
In the same way that we see a proliferation of Spanish and Korean speaking churches in the country today, there was a proliferation of German speaking churches in the 1800s. The church I now serve (Grace Church in Geneseo) started out as a mission to a growing German population in that town.
German congregations with Methodist-like theological beliefs soon organized themselves across the northern states into either “The Evangelical Association” or the “United Brethren Church.” Both groups had annual conferences and bishops of their own, even long after everyone in could only speak English... and worship was conducted only in English. (Two world wars with Germany tended to end German language worship throughout the United States.) The two once-German speaking denominations merged in 1946 to form the EUB church (Evangelical United Brethren).
By the early 1960s, the EUB church had one annual conference in the state of Illinois and the Methodists had three.
I attended my first annual conference (the Illinois EUB Annual Conference) in Naperville, Illinois, in 1964, as a ten year old, the year that conference ordained my dad as a pastor. I had never seen so many men in white shirts and ties. And I had never heard such grand melody and harmony: hundreds of powerful voices singing the hymns I would soon come to love so much.
The EUB and Methodist denominations merged in 1968 to become the United Methodist Church. I started attending annual conferences regularly in 1974, back when the Southern Illinois Annual conferences were held at McKendree College in Lebanon, Illinois. At that time we had three United Methodist annual conferences in Illinois: Northern, Central, and Southern. In 1996, the Central and Southern Illinois conferences merged to become the Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference.
Annual Conference is still a time for fellowship, worship, and business. We have a little less than 2000 clergy and lay members of our current conference, a number far too inconvenient to sensibly do business. But the worship can occasionally be awesome.
The reason I go year after year, however, is the fellowship. I see hundreds of people I have worked with and known through the years.
Due to COVID, we could not meet the past two years, and so this year was a sort of homecoming, although more than half our members participated by Zoom instead of in person. So much has changed over the past five decades, especially with the loss of many members and churches… and now COVID. It feels sad.
But at annual conference this past week, some traditions persisted: the bishop still sent the preachers out at the end of the annual conference to serve in various communities; we still gave our new preachers strict instructions on what they were to do; we still remembered those who died during the past year (this year 71 pastors and pastor spouses); we still did business inefficiently; we still raised our voices in magnificent song; and we still sat at table together and relished meals and conversations with friends old and new.
