This Week in Texas Methodist History November 26 Austin Conference of the MEC Meets in Dallas Nov. 25-29, 1886 The Austin Conference of the MEC never was very large, and it lasted only a few years, but during its existence it accomplished a great deal, especially in the area of education. The Austin Confernce of the MEC grew ouit of the Texas Confernce of the MEC which had been organized by Bishop Matthew Simpson in Houston in January 1867. That conference consisted mainly of African American preachers with a few German Methodist preachers who switched from the MECS and a few transfers of English speaking Caucasian preachers who transferred from northern conferences. That racial/ethnic inclusiveness proved a barrier to MEC organizing in Rconstruction Texas, and at the 1872 Genral Confernce of the MEC a decision was made to allow the conferences to split along ethnic/racial lines if supermajorities of all the groups involved voted to do so. Based on this new policy, there were soon four MEC conferences in Texas===The Texas and West Texas Conferences for African Americans, the Southern German Confeernce for German speakers, and the Austin Confernce for Englishsh speaking Caucasians. The Austin Conference met in Tabernacle MEC Church in Dallas the last week of November, 1886. The presiding bishop was John Hurst of Buffalo, New York. (b. 1834, elected bishop 1880, famous for his role in founding American University in the District of Columbia, died 1903) There were fifteen elders, five deacons, and four probationers of the conference roll, but immigration to Texas was bringing in new residents more friendly to the MEC and the southerners who favored the MECS. Thanks to the expaning rail network of the Inteernational and Great Northern, the Union Pacific, the Texas and Pacific, and the Fort Worth and Denver City, the Missouri Kansas and Texas, the St. Louis and Southwestern Railroad among others, land developers were carving out farms and ranches on both the Gulf Coast and Western Plains of Texas. Notable among the immigrants to Texas were Midwesterners who were MEC members and had little interest in joining the MECS. Especially prominent among the immigrants were Scandanavians---a few Norwegians to Bosque and Henderson Counties, but mainly Swedes attracted to Travis and Williamson Counties. By 1886 there were enough of these Scandanavian Methodists to warrant a Scandanavian District that would become its own annual conference in 1912. Although it was quite small, the conference of 1886 had two colleges to report on. The jewel in the crown was Texas Wesleyan College built on College Hill in Fort Worth. They had just moved into a new building the previous January 1, and reported 140 students enrolled and expected to have two graduates the following May. Dear Reader---this is very confusing, because this is not the Texas Wesleyan University that exists in Fort Worth today. It is also not the Texas Wesleyan College that the Swedish Conference later founded in Austin, but it is the forerunner of Oklahoma City University. The college in the planning stage was Odessa College which did open in 1891 enrolled 14 students and closed after one one session when the building burned. It had been financed by a $12,000 grant from the Odessa Townsite Company which the Austin Confernce matched. What happened to the Austin Conference? It changed its name to the Gulf Confereence when churches in Soutnh Louisiana were added and the West Texas churches were made part of the Oklahoma Conference. As noted above, the Swedish churches became their own conference in 1912. Both the German and Swedish Conferences lasted until 1927 when then were folded into the English speaking work. By comparison, the much smaller German Mission Conference of the MECS held its last session in November 1918.

Texas Annual Conference Meets in Bay City, November 1914 The Texas Conference of the MECS met in annual session in Bay City, Texas, this week in 1914. The items considered in annual conferences have changed very little since the founding of the denomination in 1784. The highlights of annual conferences through the years have been the ordination of new members, remembrances of those who have passed on, receiving reports of the various boards, commissions, agencies, etc. Listening to representatives of the church instituions beyond the local church such as orphanges, schools, publishing houses, etc. have also been a constant as well as receving financial reports and setting a budget for the next year. Although committee reports have been a constant, the committees authorized by conferences have changed through the years. Some such as Education, Missions, and Fiance have been constant. Others, many others, have been added through the years, including the one on which I serve, Commisssion on Archives and History. It was created only in 1968 by the Uniting Conference which created the UMC. In 1914 some of the most interesting reports came from committees which no longer exist. They include the Bible Cause, the Committee on the Spiritual State of the Church, and the Committee on Sabbath Observation. As we read reports from those committees we sense a struggle to adapt to changing conditions. For example the Bible Cause deemphasized the need for English language testaments and Bibles and focused on supplying Spanish, French, Italian , and Czech Bibles to the immigrants coming to Texas, It was assumed that English language Bibles were cheap and abundant but that immigrants from Catholic countries had been denied Bibles in their own languages because priests discouraged their parishioners from read the Scriptures for themselves. The Committee on the Spiritual State of the Church was mainly interested in keeping the revival fires buring brightly. Its members were old men who remembered the good old days when Methodist were known for their emotional excesses. Methodists were known for their shouting loudly and often during the revival services, but that practice was in great decline. They interpreted the decline in emotional religion as a decline in spirituality. The Committee on Observance of the Sabbath was fighting an uphill battle. By 1914 Sunday afternoon had become a favorite time for baseball games, theater matinees, and railroad excurions to favored locales. In Houston, for example Sylvan Beach was a favorite Sunday picnic spot. In Beaumont the mineral springs at Sour Lake were a favorite excursion destination as were Rosborough Springs at Marshall. The Committee condemned all such Sunday afternoon diversions that kept Methodists away from an afternoon of Bible reading and prayer in anticipation of the Sunday eveing worship service. Who knows? Perhaps they were right. Perhaps we need to reconstitute the three committees mentioned in this blog---

This Week in Texs Methodist History November 7 Texas Annual Confernce Meets in Houston November 6-10, 1945 The first postwar session of the Texas Annual Confernce convened in Houston on November 6, 1045. Naturally the clergy and lay members of the conference were relieved and full of joy because of the end of the worst international war in history, but peace brought so many problems and opportunies for churches that they cannot be listed here. World War II had brought about the most dramatic demographic shift in Texas history as hundreds of thousands of rural Texans and out of staters migrated to the industrial sites built to supply the munifiions, futels, lubricants, aircraft, etc needed to win the war. Vast housing tracts has sprung up like mushrooms especially in the coastal counties of the Texas Annual Confernce, especially Orange, Jefferson, Galveston, Brazoria, and Harris. Some churches had been organied to serve these new residents. When peace came, would they return to their former residences? No one knew. During the War the G.I. Bill was passed. College administrators knew there would be a surge in enrollement. For Methodists that meant that SMU, Southwestern, Wiley, and the other Methodist schools would have to be enlarged and the state universities would need expanded Wesley Foundations. Another problem was how to appoint the returning chaplains. When the conference convened, there were still 28 Texas Confernce preachers on the Chaplain’s roll (22 Army and 6 Navy). The military was taking its time returning them to civilian life, but everyone knew they would be returning, and under Methodist Discipline, they all needed appointments and those appointments needed to be commensurate with their gifts and graces. One of the most interesting developments of the conference was the trarsnfer of Durwood Fleming from the North Texas Confence to organize a new church in the 3700 block of Westheimer Road in Houston. Prospective members of this church had already been meeting in the Lamar High School and had secured five acres of land. They were looking forward to the appointment of Durwood Fleming who was scheduled to preach his first sermon to the church in the Lamar HS auditorim on November 11, 1945. The church---St. Luke’s ---evenually beame one of the great churches of Texas, but most readrs will not realize that in 1945 when it was organized, it was outside the city limits of Houston----in effect a country church.