How Was The Early Methodist Church Organised?

Methodists are different to other nonconformist churches in that one of their basic doctrines was that they did not have a physical church building that was the domain of one particular minister. Instead, preaching was arranged in circuits; a large town could have several circuits, but a rural area could have one circuit encompassing several miles.

At the head of each circuit was a Circuit Church with had the circuit safe – a sort of parish chest (Steel, 1979). All deeds relating to properties in the circuit, completed registers, account books were lodged, or supposed to be lodged in the custody of the Superintendent Minister. Whether all are still in existence depends on whether they were deposited and how carefully they were kept.

The Circuits held Quarterley meetings and circuit records exist, as well as records from the individual chapels. Different meetings were arranged to look after special activities such as Overseas Missions, Chapel Affairs, Youth Work and so on. A feature of Methodism (which also relates to its other descriptor Connexion) is that these activities were also discussed further up the heirarchy, at District level, which held Synods twice a year, and at Conference level.

This was the national body that organised the annual Methodist Conference, which had links to the District organisations, the Circuits and also individual churches. This wealth of communication and links between all levels of the church was a major feature of Methodism, and was a great departure from the one-way street hierarchy of the pre-Reformation Catholic church.