Online History Courses Now Offered

The General Commission on Archives and History (GCAH) of The United Methodist Church (UMC) is excited to announce the launching of their online teaching platform, the UM History Hub (https://umhistoryhub.teachable.com/). 

“Several simultaneous pieces came together that sparked the idea of the hub,” said General Secretary Dr. Ashley Boggan. “We were reworking the Local Church Historians’ School to offer another session this fall that included ways to further connect and engage those that take the course. Additionally, we were working on Heritage Sunday resources for 2022 under the theme ‘Splits, Separations, and Reconciliations.’ There was then a natural progression of other UM-specific history courses that we could bring to the church. I’m thrilled to bring these online resources to local congregations and members.”

The homepage of the hub invites members to learn alongside GCAH to understand the past, contextualize the present, and envision the future. The hub currently offers registration for the Local Church Historians’ School (course opening in September); a fully online course that focuses on past splits, separations, and reconciliations of the denomination; a timeline of UMC history by artist Charlie Baber; a fully online course for youth ages 12-18 to pique their interest in Wesleyan roots; access to the “Un-Tied Methodism” podcast; and some new UMC history “swag.” 

“All proceeds from these courses go to support our new ministries of memory at GCAH,” Dr. Boggan added. “Your engagement with us ensures that we can continue to help all Methodists understand the past in order to contextualize the present and envision a more grace-filled future.”

“The global pandemic forced us to think about new ways to use technology on a massive scale,” said GCAH Director of Communications Jay Rollins. “Suddenly church services were online, meetings were on Zoom, FaceTime for conversations with friends and family became the norm. It sparked us to think about ways we could offer the history of the denomination to the local church in a way that we never had been able to in the past.”

Future courses will be added to the hub over the coming years to allow members to dive deeper into more specific topics. Members are encouraged to sign up for the hub to receive updates as these courses are released.