First United Methodist Church

The First United Methodist Church in Mansfield. The history of the Methodist Church goes as far back as the first half of the 18th Century. The driving force behind its founding and philosophy was a man named John Wesley, who was a student at Oxford at the time when the ideas of the Methodist Church were being formed by students interested in religious study. The church became relatively popular in the early days of the United States among those living in the rugged lands being settled. It would come to be widespread throughout the state of Ohio, drawing people in with its idea that all people may go to heaven. Controversy within the Church occurred over divisions about the teachings of John Wesley and the increasingly divisive issue of whether or not it was immoral to keep slaves. This caused multiple divisions within the church and it splintered into numerous separate Methodist denominations. After over 100 years of a divided church, the various Methodist churches joined together and eventually the United Methodist Church was formed