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By Carrie Madren
UMConnection Correspondent

In the rolling rural hills of Carroll County, Methodists convened in the 1860-era Bethel church. Attendees, clothed in 1700s dresses, knickers and long coats, sat on austere wooden pews as autumn winds rustled leaves outside tall windows. It was a portrait of the past painted to inform the present.

For a brief time on Oct. 10, the sounds of car horns, televisions, cell phones and a thousand other modern day distractions were silenced as the members of the Historic Strawbridge Shrine Association gathered to celebrate and preserve the stories of the founders of their faith.

Delivering the keynote message, Bishop John Schol helped interpret what modern United Methodists can learn from those pioneering Methodists.

In his talk, A Bishop's Nightmare and a Dawning Movement's Grace, he described how Robert Strawbridge, who started a the Methodist movement in America, was an independent spirit from his early days in Ireland to his time seeding early Methodist congregations around Maryland from the mid-1760s on.

Strawbridge preached all over central Maryland, the Eastern Shore and ventured down into Virginia, along the way raising up spiritual leaders to carry out his work.

It wasn't always smooth sailing. Competition and tension helped form the denomination we know today, the bishop said.

"Strawbridge and Bishop Francis Asbury didn't see eye to eye," said Bishop Schol. explained. "Strawbridge baptized and served communion and encouraged other lay preachers to do the same, without Wesley's approval and with or without a denomination."

Such healthy tension and symbiosis engaged disciples, the bishop said, and helped propel the Methodist movement forward in the frontier culture of new America.

Bishop Schol recalled some early Methodists who made history in Methodism, including John Maynard, whose slave Jacob Toogood began preaching and later became the first black Methodist preacher.

After Strawbridge's death in 1781, there were some 15,000 Methodists in America, about 13,350 of whom lived in Maryland.

"A revival of the United Methodist movement will draw upon this rich history, tradition and principles, and transform the future," said Schol. "If we are to renew and embrace creative tension and seemingly paradoxical concepts and ideas, that's not very easy for us today - we prefer not to be in tension, but instead to have everybody happy."

To draw on our roots, Schol suggests seven lessons that can be learned from the era of the emerging Methodist church here in Maryland:

First, he said, we need to forge partnerships with organizations outside of the church. "Partnerships with government, business and private organizations need to thrive in the church today," Bishop Schol said. "The early Methodists attached themselves very closely to the military, so they had chaplains early on in the military and traveling in the military helping to convert service people and being where people needed faith, so out of that came new believers." Methodism was also tied early to the women's movement and opposition to slavery - both of which helped attract people to the Methodist movement.

Second, just like our faith ancestors, meeting in small groups ‘where people are' is still important - not only in homes, but in schools, coffee shops, book stores, clubs and even bars. "We need to be where people need to hear the Word of God," Schol said.

"The wonderful thing about the Methodist movement was that the class meeting was portable," he explained. Unlike established Anglican churches in buildings, Methodist leaders could move to new places where people were.

Third, churches used to start schools, hospitals and universities - today's churches should be involved in starting schools, as well as other entities that people seek out such as business clubs or soccer leagues.

Fourth, the line between clergy and laity needs to blur even more. "We have become a place that relies too heavily on clergy to carry out ministry in the church," said Schol. "Laity really formed and grew the church, and moved the church forward; pastors came along later to provide support to help the church continue."

Fifth, we need to reinvigorate that cavalier spirit that thinks with an entrepreneurial mind to meet people where they are, the bishop said.

Sixth, "we're not a frontier nation anymore, but we are a nation that receives new immigrants," Schol said. Today's ‘mission and mapping' is immigration, and we should embrace new populations.

Finally, we shouldn't be afraid of working in the midst of conflict. For the Nothing But Nets program, partnerships helped raised enough money for the Conference to deliver some 17,000 mosquito nets over to Africa to help protect sleeping people from malaria. Some say the church shouldn't foster a relationship with the United Nations Foundation and the National Basketball Association, says Schol, but working with other partners achieved has great results.

"We are called to let go of the safe and comfortable in exchange for a new and rugged adventure," Schol said, "an adventure just as challenging as Robert Strawbridge's challenges but in a different time and a different set of circumstances."