Stories, Sermons, Songs, and History in Puritan New Englandby Kathy Hanko

Jesse Lee and Freeborn Garrettson found the southern coast of New England to be hospitable and fertile ground for sharing their faith, and that is exactly what the attendees of the Northeastern Jurisdiction Commission on Archives and History annual meeting in Westport, CT found as well. The May 2015 meeting was hosted by the New York Annual Conference CAH with the theme of “Telling Our Stories.” We learned different ways of telling the stories of our faith journey both individually and through our local church communities. We enjoyed fellowship in worship, sermon, and songs as we walked, listened, observed and collected information.

Fred Day, GCAH General Secretary, discussed proposals for restructuring the denomination’s administration, which will be on the agenda at the 2016 General Conference. The GCAH is working to hire a Director of Communications to help portray historians as librarians, collectors and, more importantly, storytellers.

On Wednesday, we began our tour of the area with a visit to Yale University’s Old Campus in New Haven, led by a Senior College Fellow who highlighted its Christian heritage. Yale is the third-oldest college in the US and was founded in 1701 by for the purpose of educating Congregational clergy. As the First Great Awakening swept through New England, Yale’s

students and faculty were influenced by Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield and others. After lunch we visited the East Village Methodist Meeting House, which dates from 1811, and the Jesse Lee UMC. The afternoon provided a beautiful spring walk through the Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, Conn. to see the graves of PT Barnum, Charles Stratton (Tom Thumb) and Fanny J. Crosby, the blind poet who wrote more than 1,000 hymns.

After dinner we heard a presentation on the Rev. John Newton Mars, the first African-American received in the New England Conference. The Rev. Pat Thompson presented it in memory of Bishop Martin D. McLee, who had done the research but passed away before he could share it with us.

On Thursday, we closed the conference with a professional storyteller helping us to share our history through story. The attendees voted to support a resolution to expedite the designation of the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC as a historic landmark. We closed the conference with worship and are looking forward to next year’s meeting hosted by the Peninsula Delaware Conference in Dover, Delaware on May 23-26, 2016 in conjunction with the Historical Society of the United Methodist Church.

Number 167 July, 2015

Tour photos of the East Village Meeting House, Yale University Campus, and the Jesse Lee Church. (Photography by Pat Thompson)

Letter from the PresidentDear History and Archive Friends, I hope that you are all doing well and enjoying

the summer. It was good to see many of you at our meeting in May in Connecticut. I want to thank all of those from the New York Annual Conference who had a part in hosting us this year. We had many programs that were inspirational and uplifting. It was a great time for all of us who were able to be there.

One of the themes of our meeting this year was of the importance of telling our story. As historians we are often involved with telling the story of different historical events. Sometimes we are like detectives trying to put the different pieces together so that we can tell the story. Sometimes important parts of the story have been lost and we are trying to recover them so that the story can be told. All of this goes into the work that we do as historians.

Also at our meeting this year, we saw the grave of Fanny Crosby. She certainly is one of the greatest hymn writers of all time and several of her hymns are in our United Methodist Hymnal. One of her best known hymns is Blessed Assurance. In the chorus of that hymn it says, “This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.” It is a reminder to us that we should always being telling our story. What has God done for us? How have we seen God move in our lives? How have we seen God touch others around us?

My hope and prayer for all of you is that you will keep on telling the story in our work as historians.

May God bless all of you, Matthew Loyer

Dorothy Shindle completes dedicated career with Strawbridge Shrine

After several decades as a volunteer and the past fifteen years as treasurer of the Strawbridge Shrine Association, Dorothy Shindle retired this summer. For many years, she also maintained the Shrine’s website and published its News Bulletin. Dorothy brought exacting standards and attention to detail to her efforts. Through her work, the Strawbridge Shrine has grown in its financial maturity and in the effectiveness of its mission. Dorothy has been an example and an inspiration to all of her colleagues in the Baltimore-Washington Conference archives and history ministries.

The Northeastern United Methodist Historical Bulletin

Published 4 times a year by the Northeastern Jurisdictional Commission on Archives and

History of the United Methodist Church

Editor:Jane Donovan

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DEADLINE FOR THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE BULLETIN: Sept. 1, 2015

Northeastern Jurisdictional Commission on Archives and History

Officers for the 2009-2012 Quadrennium

Executive Committee:President: Matthew Loyer

Vice President: Gary DicksonSecretary: Joseph DiPaoloTreasurer: Philip Lawton

Archivist: Barb DuffinBulletin Editor: Jane Donovan

Immediate Past President: Janice UlmerAt-Large Members:

Leslie Reyman

cont. on page 3

HSUMC Annual Meeting to Convene July 20The Historical Society of the Untied Methodist Church will meet at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary

in Evanston, Ill July 20-23. The meeting’s theme is “Diversity: It’s Complicated,” and will feature presentations on Native American pastors in the Upper Midwest, the former Central Jurisdiction, and the archival implications of ethnic diversity in the UMC. The Wednesday tour will include stops at the Frances Willard House, the Chicago Temple (First UMC), and the Pullman Neighborhood. There is an “add-on” tour of sites in Indiana related to Helenor Alter Davisson, the first woman known to be ordained in the United Methodist tradition (by the Methodist Protestants). For more information, please contact Dan Swinson at djswinson@wowway.com or 847-772-6915.

From the General SecretaryOne of the joys of attending jurisdictional commission meetings is the day

set aside for touring. Before being elected General Secretary, my travels were limited to the historical sites within the Northeastern Jurisdiction. Has this job ever expanded my horizons!

Granted I’ve only been to Commission on Archives and History meetings in two of the five jurisdictions in the United States, but like the Doctor Seuss title exclaims: Oh the Places You’ll Go!

For instance, while attending the Western Jurisdiction meeting, the gathering of annual conference historians and archivists stayed in a motel right at the foot of Pike’s Peak! We heard about the role of the Methodist Church in General William Jackson Palmer’s vision for of Colorado Springs as a haven for health and wellbeing, visited Palmer’s Glen Eyrie estate, now the corporate home for a para church group, The Navigators. Then it was off to a lakeside Methodist Chautauqua – but talk about sights to see! The stop at the Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel was as breathtaking as the Rockies. This marvelous, futuristic interfaith sacred space soars into the air with 17 spires. On the inside, it’s “off we go into the wild blue yonder” all over again, with mosaic stained glass striping the walls and ceilings. The chapel is an awesome place of inspiration and devotion with respective liturgical centers set aside for all faiths.

Oh the Places You’ll Go! And the things you’ll see!There is something I experienced on the NEJ trek that I can’t seem to get out of my mind. The New York Annual

Conference organized an interesting, informative trip with stops at Yale University in historic New Haven, Jesse Lee heritage sites in Monroe and Eaton CT, and the Mountain Grove Cemetery, resting place of Fanny Crosby, P.T Barnum and one of Barnum’s main attractions, Tom Thumb (the latter two with no discernable Methodist connection). It was something I heard the Yale tour guide say about a certain lay ministry in the New Haven Congregational church on the green that sticks with me.

Having served as the pastor of a colonial-era church, I know that back in the day, folks did church differently. For instance, our nominating committees don’t provide for “the tithing man” any longer, and not only for reasons of inclusiveness! In case you’re unfamiliar, the tithing man was the person not only responsible for collecting the offering but for using the long pole on the end of the basket to poke congregants awake whilst they napped during the preaching. Said poke came via a thorn or a feather depending on gender.

I’d heard that one before. The one I hadn’t heard was the office of “dog whipper.” I am not making this up. The tour guide said this role was common in colonial churches where seating was segregated by gender, with mothers and children sitting in one enclosed pew box and father and the family dogs in another. You don’t need to have experienced too many modern Pet Blessing services to know that more than a few dogs in the sanctuary at any one time leads to noise and rumpus that aren’t “AMENS! or the sounds associated with some soul being slain in the Spirit.

So, when the congregational canines got loud and unruly, the “dog whipper” went to work. My mind just won’t let this one go. From thinking of people in the local churches I’ve served who I’d nominate for that office to imagining the church as a place where man and woman’s best friend gets whacked into submission. That’s an instance where I’m hoping history won’t repeat itself!

Oh the Places You’ll Go! The things you’ll see! And hear! Two jurisdictional visits down, three to go. (Not

counting the Central Conferences around the world!) SEJ next. I’m excited about what’s in store.

Fred Day, General SecretaryP.S. Many thanks to Pat Thompson for the

excellent presentation on the Rev. John Newton Mars, the first African American received into membership in an Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. (Mars was received into the MEC prior to the General Conference creating Black Missionary Conferences where black membership became allowed). Pat ably presented the work already begun by Bishop Martin McLee who died in 2014. We miss you and your leadership, Bishop McLee.

John Hinkson (Photo by Pat Thompson)

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“To have faith does not mean to be gullible. Faith is not believing on inadequate evidence or with the evidence pointing in the opposite direction. In religion, as in other things, if one tries to believe something ‘by main strength and awkwardness,’ the believer’s position is awkward but not strong. No intelligent person would believe everything he reads in the newspapers, including the claims of the patent medicine advertisements to cure all ailments! So in religion one must use discretion, not supposing that the demands of faith require him to believe everything that may be set forth in pious words.

“The assumption that what we take on faith we take with closed minds, as if we had blinders on to shut out whatever light might creep in from other sources, lies at the root of the quarrel between religion and science . . . .

“Though faith is related to belief, faith is never wholly a matter of intellectual assent to the truth of a statement. One can believe in God with a very complete set of arguments, yet not have any faith that makes a difference in living. On the other hand, with a minimum of intellectual foundations – though always with some – one may have a powerful faith. One’s belief ought to be as near right as hard thinking and inquiry will make it, for otherwise faith though strong is apt to be inflexible and misdirected. . . .

“Faith is not identical with mystery – a deep, dark reservoir into which to dump anything that seems unexplainable. The danger of this view lies in the fact that on this basis the more knowledge we get, the more our faith recedes.”

– Georgia Harkness, Understanding the Christian Faith (1947)as quoted in Amy Oden, ed., In Her Words: Women’s Writings in the History of Christian Thought

(Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1994), 329-330.

The Meaning of Faith