Our church springs from a rich tradition of studying and spreading the gospel to every corner of society, which was begun in 1729 in England and led by John and Charles Wesley. The United Methodist Church is the result of the 1939 merger of three Methodist bodies (Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal South and Methodist Protestant churches) and a 1968 union of the Evangelical United Brethren and The Methodist churches.  The United Methodist Church now has over 10 million members worldwide.