When did “be loyal ... and uphold it by your prayers, your presence, your gifts and your service” en

The earliest instance of this language appearing in the ritual of the former churches that make up The United Methodist Church that I can find is in the 1916 Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC).

In the service for "Reception of Members" this language appears:

Will you be loyal to the Methodist Episcopal Church, and uphold it by your prayer, your presence, your gifts, and your service?
Answer. I will.

In the 1912 Discipline, the previous ritual text, the comparable question reads:

Will you cheerfully be governed by the Rules of the Methodist Episcopal Church, hold sacred the Ordinances of God, and endeavor, as much as in you lies, to promote the welfare of your brethren and the advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom?
Answer. I will.
Will you contribute of your earthly substances, according to your ability, to the support of the Gospel and the various benevolent enterprises of the Church?
Answer. I will.

The exact same language appears in the 1908 Discipline. Hence, in the MEC, the change in language to what we have known in our ritual for the remainder of the 20th century was created by action of the 1916 General Conference and became the ritual language of the Methodist Church formed in 1939 and of The United Methodist Church formed in 1968.

Mark C. Shenise, Associate Archivist for the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church, adds the following clarification of how this change came about (quoted here with Mark's permission):

The actual petitions of the 1916 General Conference do not reveal a change of wording at the grassroots level. The Journal for the 1916 General Conference, however, does supply the locus of where the change took place. Prior to the meeting, a Commission to revise the ritual was set up; and the Commission submitted a 65-page recommendation that appeared in the Handbook (the equivalent of our current Advanced Daily Christian Advocate [ADCA]) that was given to delegates before the actual conference. The average page count for the Handbook was around 600 pages and contained all the formal reports by all the organizations within the denomination that were required to make said reports to General Conference. On May 9, the Conference took up the question of changes, with the emphasis on baptism. (See Karen Westerfield's book on the history of Methodist worship, American Methodist Worship). Unfortunately, the Conference started to examine the report section by section, which was taking up too much time. This was probably in response to the recent Higher Criticism controversy that had happened a decade before. Finally, C. W. Rowley stood up and motioned the Conference that the Council of Bishops review the entire document and tweak it as they saw fit and that the Conference accept their changes. The motion was passed, and the issue was laid before the Council.

If you look at the proposal sent by the Commission, you would see little in the way of changes from the wording in the 1912 Discipline. It was the Council of Bishops who collapsed the 1912 wording into the phrase in question. This was probably an out growth of modernization in the church and the call to streamline all things related to General Conference. We do not have the records to reflect what exactly happened in the Council meeting. [emphasis added]

The reception in the 1914 Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, read as follows:

Will you be subject to the discipline of the Church, attend upon its ordinances, and support its institutions?
Answer. I will endeavor so to do, by the help of God.

I did not have immediate access to the Disciplines of the Methodist Protestant Church. We invite further research and development of this article. If you have additional information please contact [email protected].