Rolling Acres Free Methodist Church honors Wesleyan Heritage

DAY, WESLEY, BERRY, HAWF

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 5/21/2011 at 04:25:26

The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Saturday, May 24, 2004
by Julie Birkedal

Free Methodists honor their Wesleyan heritage

MASON CITY - Rolling Acres Free Methodist Church celebrates its heritage Sunday with a 300th birthday celebration honoring John WESLEY.

"We're going to sing some of John and Charles WESLEY'S hymns," said Pastor Larry DAY.

There will be a potluck luncheon and ice cream and cake.

Jim BERRY, a member of Rolling Acres Free Methodist, will preach one of Wesley's sermons.

The Rev. Herschel HAWF, retired superintendent of the Free Methodist Church, will share an account of the church's history.

"It clicked one day we need to return to our roots. If we're going to become light to this community we needed to know from where we came," DAY said.

"As the community celebrates 150 years, this congregation will celebbrate 115 years. And we felt no better time than when our founder felt the spirit move within him on May 24, 1738."

It was then that John WESLEY, a priest of the Church of England born during June of 1703, had a personal experience of faith on Aldersgate Street in London while reading Martin LUTHER'S preface to the Epistle to the Romans, DAY said.

WESLEY studied the views of Moravians in America, Germany and England. When he began preaching salvation by faith, church after church soon refused him a pulpit. He began preaching open-air style.

While WESLEY was the founder of the Methodist movement, he never formally separated from the Church of England.

The combination of singing coupled with preaching on scripture in open-air meetings drew crowds of 10,000 to 20,000 people. It was not unusual for WESLEY to preach as many as 800 sermons a year.

The Free Methodist Church had its beginnings in the Methodist Episcopal Church which held annual general conferences.

At one such conference in 1860 in New York, Benjamin Titus ROBERTS was a delegate who spoke out against social injustice, DAY said.

ROBERTS was strongly anti-slavery, DAY said. He spoke out for freedom of worship style and for the ordination of women.

He was physically removed from the conference, but joined by more than two dozen delegates who formed the Free Methodist Church.

The Free Methodist Church continues to believe in personal holiness and to speak out on social issues, DAY said.

Each congregation within the church has full autonomy, he said.

Free Methodists in Mason City began meeting together in homes in 1870, DAY said.

At one time, North Iowa Free Methodists were visited by ROBERTS and followers Thomas and Calvin LaDUC.

The first Free Methodist Church in Mason City was located on Sixth Street Southwest, DAY said. Built in 1883, it was an outgrowth of the church at Plymouth.

Rolling Acres Free Methodist Church, 604 23rd St. S.W., has 26 members with about twice that number regularly attending worship, DAY said.

The church has mid-week worship at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays. Beginning June 1, summer worship will be at 8 and 10 a.m. Sundays.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2011