Chart of Methodist and Holiness Denominations in America

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You’re about to get a tour through the most detailed chart in existence of the Methodist and Holiness traditions of Christianity in the United States. When you’re done you can follow the link in the description to download the chart in full resolution for free.

Today in the United States, the two biggest names in Methodism are the United Methodist Church, and the new Global Methodist Church. I’ll begin by tracing the relatively simple path that led to their existence, and then we’ll keep building.

First, the Methodist Episcopal Church. This was the original Methodist denomination in the United States, beginning in 1784, and it lasted over 150 years.

In 1828, the Methodist Protestant Church split from the MEC. You may wonder why I put it all the way out here and why this line isn’t straight, and I’ll tell you that is just a hint of the complexity that is to come in this chart.

In 1845, Methodism split over the issues of the Civil War and the Confederacy, resulting in the formation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. You’ll notice that all three of these denominations end at the same time, and that is because in 1939, they all merged back together to form The Methodist Church.

Now let me put this denomination on the chart, called the Evangelical United Brethren Church. It had been founded in 1946, from two denominations merging, and had theological leanings that were not too far off from that of the Methodist Church. In 1968, these two denominations merged, which produced the United Methodist Church. This is by far the largest U.S. Methodist denomination with around 23,000 churches.

After the UMC Special Conference in 2019 exposed massive divisions in the UMC over the issues of Biblical interpretation and the acceptance of homosexuality, the UMC experienced a multi-year split. Thousands of churches left, and the denomination that received the most was a new denomination, the Global Methodist Church, founded in 2022. It has about 3,700 US churches.[1]

So, that’s not all that complex, right? Well, let’s go back and fill in some of the details. A circuit-riding Methodist preacher named James O’Kelly was not a fan of Francis Asbury, who was a leading figure in early American Methodism, and one of the first two bishops of the church. In 1792, O’Kelly left the church, and in 1794  he established the Republican Methodist Church. But O’Kelly wasn’t just on his way out of the MAC, but Methodism in general, and the Republican Methodist Church soon turned into just the “Christian Church” or “Christian Connection.” This was a very fascinating denomination, which in the end, through a series of mergers, ended up in what is today the United Church of Christ. But for the sake of this video, the rest of this denomination’s history isn’t important, as it left Methodism.

Many of the denominations to form from people who left the Methodist Episcopal Church in the next few decades were black churches.

In 1813, the Union Church of Africans was formed by Peter Spencer. In 1852 it was renamed to African Union Church. It was actually a part of the MEC until 1816, and this is a good place to mention that different denominations count differently when it comes to the founding of their churches, so some of these dates are open for follow-up questions.

In 1816 the African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded. Today it has over 3600 churches. In 1821, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was founded. The earliest church that formed the AMEZ was founded in 1796, but was still part of the Methodist Episcopal Church at that time. I’ve indicated this earlier date, which shows on the AMEZ’s logo with this light gray bar. Today it has over 1,580 churches.

In 1850, there was a split in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, leading to the formation of the First Colored Methodist Protestant Churches.  In 1866, these churches merged with the African Union to form the African Union Methodist Protestant Church, commonly known as the “A.U.M.P” Church. It has about 40 churches today. A year before the merger, the African Union split, forming the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church, which hasabout 50 churches. Today, the A.U.M.P and U.A.M.E churches are sometimes called the “Spencer Churches” after their founder. Both churches view the founding dates of their church to contain the decades of history of the African Union Church.

The Church of Christ Holiness USA dates its founding to 1896 and Charles Price Jones and Charles Harrison Mason, both Baptists who accepted holiness teaching and were kicked out of the Baptist association. The churches were called by several names “Church of Christ”, “Church of God”, Christ Association of Mississippi of Baptized Believers in Christ. In 1906, based on Mason’s idea, they took the name of Church of God in Christ. In 1906, Mason went to check on the Azusa Street revival, and became Pentecostal. C.P. Jones didn’t, and Mason and his followers were ejected from the group in 1907. Mason’s group, which is not shown on this chart because it’s holiness Pentecostal, also used the name “Church of God in Christ”, and incorporated with that name, which meant that C.P. Jones’s group needed to change theirs. That new name was “Church of Christ (Holiness) USA. Note that this denomination and the Church of God in Christ both claim to have begun in 1896, but the Church of Christ Holiness USA views Jones as its founder, and the Church of God in Christ views Mason as its founder. The Church of Christ Holiness USA officially organized in 1907. It has 124 congregations.

Also in 1907, amid the splitting, Charles W Gray led a number of churches out and they formed another non-Pentecostal holiness association called the Church of God Sanctified. In 1927, this group began to ordain women, which Gray opposed, so he led churches out to form the “Original Church of God or Sanctified Church.” Both groups have an unknown number of churches.

In 1870, the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America was formed from the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and renamed in 1954 to the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, which today has about 1600 churches.

In 1864, James Fowler Given was put out of itinerant ministry in the Methodist Episcopal Church because he refused to support military force in support of abolition of slavery. The church he started, the Christian Union, takes the position of “avoidance of all partisan political preaching.” There are an unknown number of churches today.

In 1909, from this denomination the Churches of Christ in Christian Union split, with the CCCU holding to a Wesleyan view of Sanctification which they believed was being stifled in the Christian Union – a common reason for Holiness denominations to exit Methodist ones. There are around 200 churches.

In 1883, individuals who had been part of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but felt that it was lax in its teaching of an instantaneous experience of entire sanctification formed a church in Centralia Missouri. This would grow into an association called the Church of God (Holiness) which today claims about 120 congregations.

In 1892 another denomination formed from a church leaving the Methodist Episcopal Church – Christ’s Sanctified Holy Church. They teach that Entire Sanctification is necessary for salvation. There are 18 congregations.

1900 is the founding date for the Lumber River Conference of the Holiness Methodist Church, which was founded as a mission outreach to the Lumbee American Indian tribe. The “Holiness Methodist Church” referred to in the name consists entirely of this Lumber River Conference – it’s not a subgroup of anything. It has 10 congregations.

In 1901, Alma Bridwell White founded Pillar of Fire, which was a KKK-supporting denomination that has since repudiated their past stance and renamed to Pillar Ministries. They have three churches in the US today.

In 1898, the Southeastern Kansas Fire Baptized Holiness Association disassociated from the Fire Baptized Holiness Church, a holiness denomination that became Pentecostal and end up in the International Pentecostal Holiness Church. However, this group left not because of Pentecostalism, but because Benjamin Irwin, a founder of the group, was teaching that Christians should keep the Old Testament food laws. In 1945 they took the name of Fire Baptized Holiness Church, which was no longer in use by their parent denomination, and in 1995 they renamed to Bible Holiness Church. They have about 35 churches today.

in 1925, Lela G. McConnell, who was a deaconess in the Methodist Episcopal Church, left and formed the Kentucky Mountain Holiness Association, which is not viewed as a denomination by its members. There are fewer than fifteen churches.

In 1926, Jim Green left the Methodist Episcopal Church South over concerns surrounding theological liberalism and lack of holiness emphasis. Later in 1938 he would found the People’s Methodist Church. Though I show this church as a division from the MEC-South, it could just as well be viewed as starting independently, or even be viewed as a division from the Church of the Nazarene, which Green also involved in between his time in the MEC-South and founding the People’s Methodist Church.

Leading up to the Merger of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Methodist Episcopal Church South, and the Methodist Protestant Church, various groups began to exit these denominations to avoid the merger. One case is the Southern Methodist Church. A large group of MEC-south ministers were concerned about theological liberalism they had seen in the MEC-South, and saw even more in the Methodist Episcopal Church they were soon to merge with. As a result, they decided not to merge, and just continue the MEC-South. So even though the merger happened in 1939, these churches continued operating as the Methodist Episcopal Church South. As a result, they were taken to court by the Methodist Church, which held rights to that name, and eventually they lost in 1945. This meant that most of the congregations lost their property, and had to stop using their name, so they chose the name of Southern Methodist Church. There are about 75 churches in the denomination today.

A similar situation took place on the other side of the merger, with the Methodist Protestant Church. A small minority of congregations, led by the Mississippi Conference, didn’t want to merge and retained the Methodist Protestant Church name after the merger. Somehow they avoided a similar lawsuit. They claim the history of the Methodist Protestant Church as shown in their logo, which says “Organized 1828.” There are fewer than 40 churches today.

Similarly, another group stayed out of the merger, the Eastern Province of the Methodist Protestant Church, and took the name of Bible Protestant Church, and then later in 1985 renamed to the Fellowship of Fundamental Bible Churches. Today the fellowship is cessationist, teaches a pre-trib rapture believer’s baptism by immersion, and eternal security. None of the churches in it have the name Methodist and several have the name Baptist. There are 15 churches and about the same number of individual members who are pastors of other churches.

Even after the merger into the Methodist Church not everyone was happy. John’s Chapel Church in Missouri, which had been a Methodist Protestant Church congregation, withdrew in 1942 and formed the Fundamental Methodist Conference. They only baptize believers and by immersion only. There were 13 congregations in 2001 and an unknown number today.

In 1946 the Evangelical Methodist Church exited the Methodist Church over theological liberalism. There are around 80 US Churches, and several times that in other countries. In 1953, a small group left and formed the Evangelical Methodist Church of America which has fewer than twenty congregations, and in which churches commonly teach cessationism and eternal security.[2]

In 1938 the People’s Methodist Church merged into the Evangelical Methodist Church.

In 1989, the EMC has a small split, with three churches leaving to form the Bethel Methodist Church after an unfavorable verdict from a church trial. Believers baptism is practiced, but not by immersion. There are five churches.

Five churches left the EMC in 2011, forming the National Association of Wesleyan Evangelicals. Today their website lists six churches.

Going back to the Methodist Church, the next notable split after the Evangelical Methodist Church left in 1946 was the formation of the Association of Independent Methodists in 1965, which began with churches from Mississippi exiting the Methodist Church. One of the reasons it was formed is also what makes it distinct: It has fully congregational polity and autonomous churches. There are 112 churches in the Association today.

When the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church in 1968 to form the United Methodist Church, not all of the EUB church came into the merger. In 1967, the Pacific Northwest Conference had voted to secede from the denomination to avoid the merger, and they organized in 1968 as the Evangelical Church of North America. The church did have to settle with the Methodist Church and give up many congregations’ properties. In 1969, another Methodist denomination, called the Holiness Methodist Church, merged into the Evangelical Church. There are 85 churches in the Evangelical Church’s online directory, and 110 according to the 2020 US Religion Census.

Now let’s trace a path to another major US denomination. In 1841 the Wesleyan Methodist Church exited the Methodist Episcopal Church. One major reason was that the founder of the Wesleyan Methodist Church were strongly abolitionist, and disliked the MEC’s toleration of slavery.

In 1897, the International Holiness Union and Prayer League was formed by members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It wasn’t considered a denomination at the time, but in 1906 it became known as the International Apostolic Holiness Union and Churches, a hint that it was now looking like a denomination. 1922 was when it became known as the Pilgrim Holiness Church.

In 1968 the Wesleyan Methodist Church and Pilgrim Holiness Church merged to form the Wesleyan Church. It has about 1,460 congregations today.

Along the way though the Wesleyan Methodist Church and Pilgrim Holiness Church had other denominations form out of them.

In 1893 the Church of Daniel’s Band was formed out of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. It has four congregations today, all in Michigan and self-identifies as non-denominational.

1913 was the year that the Missionary Methodist Church was founded, when H.C. Sisk left the Wesleyan Methodist Church with a group of followers. There are thirteen churches.

Ralph Goodrich Finch led churches out of the Pilgrim Holiness Church in 1937, creating the Emmanuel Association of Churches which is a holiness denomination opposed to war. There are fewer than 20 US congregations.

The Immanuel Missionary Church was founded a year later in 1938, also from the Pilgrim Holiness Church, because its ministers taught in “the death route to entire sanctification”, which is that a person couldn’t simply achieve entire sanctification by faith or ask God for this experience, but needed to renounce the world and put their fleshly nature to death. There is an unknown number of congregations.

God’s Missionary Church was founded in 1935 after several independent Churches were started by holiness church planters. A group of these churches considered four options: Joining the Pilgrim Holiness Church, Church of the Nazarene, or Wesleyan Methodist Church, or to start their own denomination. They chose the fourth option, and today God’s Missionary Church has about 45 churches.

The Immanual Missionary Church had two districts, Eastern and Western, and in 2015, the Western district merged with God’s Missionary Church.

The New York District of the Pilgrim Holiness Church was started as a separate denomination in 1897, called the Pentecostal Rescue Mission of Binghamton, New York. Pentecostal didn’t have the same meaning that it does today. In 1922, they joined the Pilgrim Holiness Church, but in 1963 they left again, forming the Pilgrim Holiness Church of New York. There are 29 churches listed on their website, 14 in New York.

In 1966, two years before the main body of the Pilgrim Holiness Church merged with the Wesleyan Methodist Church, two churches in Illinois left, soon joined by three in Indiana. They worked with the New York group to form the “Midwest Conference of the Pilgrim Holiness Church of New York.” The conference was relatively independent from the New York body because of geographical separation. In 1971 they became independent as their own denomination and they incorporated in 1972. Today they are officially just the Pilgrim Holiness Church, but often “Midwest” is appended for clarification. They list 31 churches on their website.

The year before the merger, 1967, a group of conservative Methodist churches left the Wesleyan Methodist Church in order to avoid the merger. These churches formed the Bible Methodist Connection of Churches, which today has 94 congregations listed on their website.

The year of the merger, in 1968, another group left called the Bible Methodist Connection of Tennessee. They are not affiliated with the other Bible Methodists, and to make things more confusing, the Bible Methodists not of Tennessee have five churches in Tennessee. The Tennessee Bible Methodists have about 15 congregations.

Also in 1968 another conservative group formed from the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection. Churches that joined this organization tended to keep the name “Wesleyan Methodist Church” in their church names. Though not independently verified, the Wikipedia page of the connection says that there are 108 churches.

Stepping back in time to 1860, the Free Methodist Church was organized by individuals who had been removed from the Methodist Episcopal Church. They opposed slavery, pew rent, and held to entire sanctification. They have over 830 U.S. churches. Free Methodists are international, with over 1.5 million members worldwide.

In 1958, the Evangelical Wesleyan Church of North America left the Free Methodists, and the Midwest Holiness Association did in 1962. These two groups merged in 1963 to form the Evangelical Wesleyan Church. There are fewer than 30 congregations.

In 1966, the United Holiness Church left the Free Methodist Church. It grew to thirty-some churches before declining after some controversies, and in 1994 it merged into the Bible Methodist Connection of Churches.

Back in 1852, the Congregational Methodist Church formed from churches leaving the Methodist Episcopal Church South due to a desire for Congregational polity. They have 212 churches.

In 1941, the First Congregational Methodist Church split from them, though they date their origin back to 1852 when the CMC was formed. They claim over fifty churches.

In 1982, the Southern Congregational Methodist Church also left the Congregational Methodist Church. They have fewer than thirty churches.

Now let’s discuss the formation of the Church of the Nazarene. You may have noticed that most of the time its history is brought up, people mention a collection of denominations merging but don’t list the way that it happened, because it can get kind of busy. These denominations that merged were mostly regional in nature. The People’s Evangelical Church formed in 1887, followed by The Mission Church in 1888. They merged in 1890 to form the Central Evangelical Holiness Association. In 1894 the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America was founded, and in 1897 it merged with the Central Evangelical Holiness Association to form the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America. “Pentecostal” at the time was essentially a term for revival, renewal, and holiness, not the idea of speaking in tongues. In 1895 a denomination was founded called the Church of the Nazarene. This is not the same as the denomination by that name today. The Church of the Nazarene merged with the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America to form the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene in 1907. In 1888 The Holiness Church was founded. In 1901 the Independent Holiness Church was founded, and the Holiness Church merged into it. In 1894 the New Testament Church of Christ was founded, and it merged with the Independent Holiness Church in 1904 to form the Holiness Church of Christ. In1908,this church merged with the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene, and the new denomination’s name was also Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene. 1908 is viewed as the founding date of the Church of the Nazarene, and that name was chosen in 1919 as the term Pentecostal now had new meanings that the Church of the Nazarene and its predecessors had never accepted. After 1908, several other denominations not on this chart also merged into the church. It has over 5,150 churches in the US.

1955 though was a time when a denomination left the Church of the Nazarene. Led by Glenn Griffith, conservative ministers formed the Bible Missionary Union, which renamed to Bible Missionary Church in 1956. It has an unknown number of churches.

In 1959, the Wesleyan Holiness Association of Churches was formed as a split from the BMC with divorce being one of the dividing issues. It has fewer than thirty churches.

In 2003 the Pilgrim Nazarene Church split from the Bible Missionary Church. The BMC does not allow use of the internet, while the Pilgrim Nazarenes didn’t feel this was a reasonable position. In 2019 they merged into the Bible Methodist Connection of Churches.

Back to the Church of the Nazarene, in 1966 the Church of the Bible Covenant was formed by Remiss Rehfeldt and other he took with him out of the Nazarenes. In 1988, the Church was essentially replaced by another denomination, the International Fellowship of Bible Churches, which has 51 churches listed on their website today.

Another group from the Church of the Bible Covenant formed the International Conservative Holiness Association. The ICHA has 47 churches listed on their website, some which have “Bible Holiness Church” or “Church of the Bible Covenant” in their names.

In 1972, Faith Community church exited from the Church of the Nazarene. It would come to take the name of Crusaders Churches of America for the churches that joined it. That number is six churches today, five in Illinois and one in Missouri.

Now, let’s fill in a few more spots on the chart, beginning with two denominations which originated in the UK but have an American presence. The Primitive Methodist Church began in England in 1807, and the Primitive Methodist Church in the USA was founded in 1840. Since that time, Primitive Methodists in the UK and Australia merged with other denominations, so the US branch is the sole remaining Primitive Methodist denomination. It has about 60 churches.

The Salvation Army was founded by William and Catherine Booth in England in 1865 and in 1880 it first established a U.S. Presence. It has over 1100 congregations in the U.S. today.

What the holiness movement encompasses can go far beyond methodism. Another tradition that it encompasses is the Church of God movement that has Daniel Sidney Warner as a father figure– not to be confused with the various Pentecostal denominations that use this name.

The Church of God is the oldest representative of this group, founded in 1881 It is normally called Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) to distinguish it from other denominations with similar names. The U.S. religion census counted 1,944 US Churches.

The Church of God Evening Light separated from it in 1913. It is also sometimes called the Church of God (Guthrie, Oklahoma). There are 36 congregations listed in the online directory.

From this group the Church of God Restoration separated in 1980, led by Daniel Layne. There are Six US locations on their website.

There are also denominations originating in Anabaptism, Quakers,  and other traditions that are holiness-adjacent, but I plan to chart those separately in an their own Denominational Tradition Charts. So this is the full first edition of this chart.

Let’s look at a few groupings quickly. Feel free to pause if you want to look around, but probably no good if you’re on a cell phone. Here are the denominations that are part of the Global Wesleyan Alliance. Here are the denominations part of the National Association of Evangelicals. Here are the denominations that have at least one thousand US congregations. Here are the denominations with at least one hundred congregations.

This chart is free for you to share without modification. I do plan to update the chart as more events transpire or to make corrections. Thanks for supporters at readytoharvest.com who have made it possible for me to spend hours upon hours researching and making this chart and putting this video together.

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