Throughout United Methodism, churches are completing the process of planning and reorganizing for the new year. There are officers to be elected, positions to be filled, and revitalized energy to be inserted into the existing structures of the church.

Although John Wesley was never a dictatorial autocrat in the harshest sense, he was a born organizer. The responsibility for setting rules, maintaining discipline, settling disputes, presiding over discussions, even the chore of keeping statistical records, seemed to satisfy some deep emotional need quite irrespective of the service which he believed he was performing for others. Wesley was not an architect of church structures or ecclesiastical values. He credits the Moravians, more than any other single source, for suggesting the patterns of devotion and discipline, of bands, societies, conferences, of vigils, and love-feasts, all within the sacramental and liturgical framework of the Church of England.

John Wesley was a clergyman of the Church of England, who urged attendance at local parish and opposed separation from the Church. He wanted his group to remain an evangelistic "order" within the Church of England, because he was deeply attached to the church and devoted to the mission of the church to the people.

Yet, bit by bit Methodism came into being. Entry into church was by baptism, usually of infants, usually followed later by confirmation. Bishops, priests and deacons ministered in the church. It held Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. It held Holy Communion and was clearly linked with the State, and was largely governed by a "Bishop-type" person. The churches were amorphous congregations with virtually no ecclesiastical discipline. Members held a variety of theological, ethical and political views. The whole history of Methodism may be regarded as an evolution from society to church. The compromise between those who did not want to form a separate denomination and those who did was reached in 1795 with the "Plan of Pacification."

The exclusion of Wesley from many Church of England pulpits; and the refusal of Holy communion to Methodists in the parish churches because they were "not of this parish" alienated some Methodists. Wesley's ordination of Thomas Coke for the American Methodists, along with the later appointment of Asbury by Coke, and then others, made a final break almost inevitable.

The process of separation of Methodism from the Church of England was gradual and untidy. Slowly some Methodist preachers were referred to as ministers, and societies came to be known as churches. Some Methodists became reluctant to take communion in their local parishes, feeling more of a communal spirit within the societies.

In America when it was clear that they would be independent of the British crown, Wesley gave a three-fold ministry of Superintendent, Elder and Deacon, and a revision of the "Book of Common Prayer," called "The Sunday Service."

Frank Baker records that despite his humility John Wesley was sometimes accused of boasting. One of his favorite expressions about Methodist success was Numbers 23:23, "What hath God wrought!" This was no means boasting, rather it was an attempt to give God the glory for what had happened.

As we organize within our individual churches for the new year, imagine the organizational challenge John Wesley faced. And may we remember too his ultimate observation, "What hath God wrought!" In subsequent columns we will examine some of the early church structures he initiated which live today and give us our distinctive relationships with one another and from church to church, from age to age the same.