With over 11 million members world-wide, the United Methodist Church is the largest Protestant Denomination of the Christian faith.
The United Methodist Church today is a merger of the original English speaking Methodist Church, and the originally German speaking Evangelical United Brethren. The two churches joined together in 1968, forming the United Methodist Church. Both churches shared a common belief system and structure, just different languages. When the “EUB’s” no longer spoke German, but now spoke English, the two churches felt it was time to unify into a single denomination.
The cross and flame emblem logo of the United Methodist Church represents that union, with the cross representing Jesus Christ, and the two tongues of flame representing the Holy Spirit in the two churches joining together.
So, what are United Methodists about? What are we know for?
The most common answer to that is three things:
1. Trying to make a difference in the world. Methodist have a long history of ministry helping make society a better place for all people.
2. A deep spirituality that translates faith into daily living with God.
3. Our connectedness to each other. We actually call it “the Connection.” Each United Methodist congregation is tied to all the others through common beliefs, and common structure and order. We join together to accomplish ministry in ways that single congregations might not be able to do otherwise.
For more information go to www.umc.org.
