Last week, we took our daughter to Southern Wesleyan University. One of the opportunities we had was to stop and take pictures of Freedom’s Hill Church. Freedom’s Hill has the distinction of being the first Wesleyan Methodist Church in the south.

How did such a thing happen? The year was 1843. The nation was divided on the issue of slavery. Not only was the nation divided but so was the church. Methodist Episcopal pastor Orange Scott was an abolitionist. He and several others had brought resolutions to the general conference floor several times to make a stance on slavery. At the 1843 General Conference, Orange Scott and his colleagues brought up the issue once again. One member of the conference said, “I wish Orange Scott was in heaven.” Or in other words “drop dead!” The little group was silenced and as a result they began forming the Wesleyan Methodist Connection.

Five years later in 1847, a small group of abolishionists in North Carolina, were looking to start a Wesleyan Methodist Church. They contacted the conference. It would be dangerous to appoint an abolishionist pastor to a church in the south. It would have to be a volunteer.

Adam Crooks was that volunteer. Crooks was a “true Wesleyan” and wasn’t much appreciated. Freedom’s Hill is a story of people going against the flow. Check out the above links. Dr. Bob Black, a professor at SWU, has written a great article about Freedom’s Hill. The church even received local news coverage.

The Wesleyan Methodist Church was at the forefront of several key issues of the day. A Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Seneca Falls, NY was the location of the first Women’s Rights Convention. This convention was to give women basic human rights such as owning property and the right to vote.

Even today, thanks to the efforts of Jo Anne Lyon and World Hope International, the Wesleyan Church which was the result of a merger of the Pilgrim Holiness Church and the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1968, is at the forefront of social issues. Are we doing as much as we should? Not yet! But we are beginning to make progress and I like being part of a movement like this. Here is a sermon I wrote several years ago about Freedom’s Hill along with some links at the bottom.