History
The Free Methodist Church was organized at Pekin, New York, in 1860. The founders had been members of the Methodist Episcopal Church but were excluded from its membership for too earnestly advocating the doctrines and usages of historic Methodism. Under the leadership of Rev. Benjamin Titus (B. T.) Roberts, a graduate of Wesleyan University and an able and eloquent preacher, the movement spread rapidly. Societies were organized, churches built and the work established.
At the 1910 session of the General Conference of the Methodist Church at Rochester, New York, a full acknowledgement was made of the wrong done to Roberts fifty years before, and the credentials unjustly taken from him were restored in a public meeting to his son, Rev. Benson Roberts.
Before the founding of the church, Roberts began publication of a monthly journal, The Earnest Christian. In 1868, The Free Methodist (now Light and Life) was begun. A publishing house was established in 1886 to produce books, periodicals and Sunday school curriculum and literature.
The name "Methodist" was retained for the newly organized church because the founders felt that their misfortunes (expulsion from the Methodist Episcopal Church) had come to them because of their adherence to doctrines and standards of Methodism. The word "Free" was suggested and adopted because the new church was to be an anti-slavery church (slavery was an issue in those days), because pews in the churches were to be free to all rather than sold or rented (as was common), and because the new church hoped for the freedom of the Holy Spirit in the services rather than a stifling formality. However, according to World Book Encyclopedia, the third principle was "freedom" from secret and oathbound societies (in particular the Freemasons).
===Recent history===
Free Methodist headquarters were located in Winona Lake, Indiana, until 1990 when the denomination moved its headquarters to Indianapolis. The church has about 77,000 members in the United States and an average attendance of 107,000 at its Sunday services. Worldwide its membership is over 800,000 with large segments of membership in the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, and Rwanda (with around 120,000 members).
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