United Methodist Churches

In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, observance of the Christian year by American Methodists was mainly limited to "great festivals" such as Christmas, Easter, and Whitsunday (Pentecost). A movement toward recovery of the entire Christian year gained momentum in the mid-twentieth century, and in 1984 United Methodists adopted the ecumenical Common Lectionary and calendar. Methodism began as a movement led by John Wesley (17031791), a priest of the Church of England who followed the Christian year as set forth in The Book of Common Prayer. When the Methodists in America set up the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784, Wesley sent them an adaptation of The Book of Common Prayer, entitled Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America. In this work he simplified the Anglican version of the Christian year to include: Sundays of Advent (four), Nativity of Christ (Christmas), Sundays after Christmas (up to fifteen), Sunday before Easter, Good Friday, Easter Day, Sundays after …