In celebration of our bicentennial year, we will observe our founding date this Sunday, May 20th with a reenactment of what that first official Methodist Class meeting in the spring of 1812 might have been like. Since we do not have an exact date of our founding, we chose this Sunday to focus on our official beginning. During our worship this Sunday, there will be several people dressed in period clothing to help us commemorate our founding day. Don't be surprised if one of them asks you where the biscuits and tea are. Let him/her know that in 2012, we offer donuts instead!
Circuit Rider James B. Finley, with the aid of Nimrod Bright and Jesse Spurgeon, who were licensed exhorters, organized what is now First UMC. There had been other Methodist gatherings in Lancaster dating to 1799 but this is believed to be the first with a definite organization. This first class composed of ten members which included Jacob D. Detrich and wife, Peter Reber, Sarah Reiber, Christian Weaver, Elizabeth Weaver, George Canode, Mary Canode, Thomas Orr and wife. It's interesting that our spring new member class and our recent confirmation class each included ten people who joined our church!
Here is some information about Rev. James B. Finley, the circuit rider of the Lancaster Methodist Class when it officially became a Methodist Episcopal Church in the spring of 1812. This is from the PBS God in America series.
James B. Finley converted and went home to rural Ohio, where he blamed a lack of spiritual guidance on his eventual backsliding in faith. After a second conversion experience, he joined the Methodist Church, which was expanding and reaching more people on the frontier. He soon felt a call to preach and became a Methodist circuit rider.
Admitted on a trial basis in 1809, Finley was assigned to the 475-mile Wills Creek Circuit in Ohio. It took him four weeks to traverse it. He wrote: "I entered upon this work with great fear and trembling." He built a 12-by-14-foot cabin to provide shelter for his wife and daughter. He was so poor that he had to sell his boots to buy food for his family. In his first year, he converted 178 persons on the circuit. In September 1811, Finley and 19 others were ordained by Francis Asbury, one of the first American Methodist bishops.
Finley's friend and colleague Abel Stevens described him as "a genuine child of the wilderness, ... of stalwart frame, features rather coarse, with large benevolent eyes, sandy hair, standing erect, a good expressive mouth, a voice like thunder." Another Methodist minister said his voice "seldom failed to penetrate every citadel of the soul." His nickname was the "lion of the forest."
Under the guidance of Finley and the circuit riders, Methodism exploded, becoming the fastest growing denomination in the antebellum era. It was not simply a question of the number of converts. The greatest impact and more lasting result was the growth in reform movements intended to improve society. Many believed that once souls were saved, fundamental changes in society were bound to follow. As Methodism pushed through the frontier, it brought a surge of Bible societies, temperance groups and other organizations with the aim of reforming society and educating people living on the new nation's fringes. These voluntary societies, combined with the tremendous energy and "can-do" optimism of the frontier, decisively shaped the American religious landscape.
Finley himself became involved in prison reform, temperance, rights for Native Americans, women's causes and slavery. His father freed the slaves he had when Finley was a teenager, and Finley spoke on the subject at a contentious Methodist conference that ended with the church dividing between the North and the South: "How any man can say it is right for him to hold his fellow being in bondage, and buy and sell him at pleasure, put him under an overseer, and drive, whip, and half starve him, and that this is connived by the Methodist Church, I cannot comprehend."
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