2015 UM History Series #10: History of the Evangelical United Brethren Church

            In 1752 a German Reformed pastor named Phillip William Otterbein came to America and served German-speaking German Reformed churches along the Pennsylvania- Maryland border.  In 1774 Otterbein settled in a church in Baltimore where he would remain pastor until his death in 1813.

            Upon arriving in Baltimore Otterbein met and befriended Frances Asbury and the two would remain life-long friends.  Otterbein assisted in Asbury’s consecration as a Methodist bishop as a guest at the Christmas Conference in 1784 and Asbury preached a memorial service for Otterbein.  Otterbein began to organize his church using the Wesleyan small group model which he learned from Asbury.

            In 1767 Otterbein attended a meeting at a barn near Lancaster, Pennsylvania where he heard a Mennonite preacher named Martin Boehm share his testimony of conversion.  When Boehm finished Otterbein rose from his seat and embraced him and said, “Wir Sen Brüder” (We are brethren.)  Boehm would later be expelled from the Mennonite church for his preaching of conversion and association with non-Mennonites.

            Otterbein and Boehm would begin working together to form and oversee a loosely organized evangelical movement, not unlike the Methodist movement, among German-speaking churches in the area.

            In 1798 Otterbein called together a conference of the preachers of the movement and began the process of organizing a new church.  In 1800 the next conference officially organized the Church of the United Brethren in Christ which would later be renamed the United Brethren Church.

            In our own community the former Iowa Juvenile Home was originally Leander-Clark College, a United Brethren College and the recently sold Education Center of Christ UMC was originally Otterbein United Brethren Church.

            Around the same time that Otterbein and Boehm were doing their work, a German-Lutheran pastor, Jacob Albright, had begun another Methodist-like movement among German speakers in Pennsylvania.  This movement would become known as the Evangelical Association and later the Evangelical Church.

            Brethrens, Evangelicals, and Methodists would continue to grow separately, have their own internal struggles and separations, and each become great churches throughout the 19^th century. 

In 1946 the United Brethren Church and the Evangelical Church merged to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church.  And, in 1968 the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged with the Methodist Church to form the United Methodist Church.  That is why it is very important to remember to say “United” when we say Methodist, because it reminds us of a very important part of our history.

Next time we will pick back up with the history of the Methodist Episcopal Church up to and after the Civil War.