This logo served the UMC until the 1992 General Conference

This logo has served the UMC since the 1992 General Conference when it was changed to empathize Leading, Caring, and communicating

Courtesy United Methodist Church www.umc.org

The office of lay speaker in The United Methodist Church, originally known as exhorter, has existed in the church almost from the beginning of Methodism. We do not know the exact time that the first exhorter began to speak, but one of the earliest references to this precursor of the office of certified lay speaker occurred in 1746, only two years after the first annual conference of Methodism, a meeting of Wesley's British Methodist preachers. In Cornwall, England, there had been active hostilities against the Methodists and lay preachers. This movement to exterminate Methodism from Cornwall resulted in a number of incidents that left the meetings of Methodists without leaders and threatened their existence. The following incident reveals that, in the earliest years of the Methodist movement in England, it was the exhorters who held the Methodist Societies together. John Simon reports that

the lay preachers were seized by constables, dragged to prison and committed to the custody of military officers and the captains of men-of war, for the King's service. Scarcely a lay preacher was left at liberty in the whole county. But this seeming catastrophe fell out 'unto the furtherance of the gospel.' In the absence of the lay preachers, the Societies continued to meet, and their meeting suggested a remedy." (John Wesley and the Methodist Societies; Epworth Press, 1923; page 238)

Thomas Jackson, in his Life of Charles Wesley, says,

Under these circumstances a new class of labourers had been raised up, in almost every place, bearing the name of Exhorters. They did not preach, in the usual sense of that term; but held meetings for prayer, and addressed the people on the subject of religion, giving them requisite encouragement and admonition, and calling "them that were without" to repentance. In this he [Charles Wesley] saw the hand of God, raising up instruments to carry on his own work; the Exhorters being generally men of superior sense, and of unquestionable piety. By the labours of these men the Societies were kept together. . . . Thus the work was carried on, in despite of opposition, till persecutors themselves, if not convinced, saw their efforts to be hopeless, and agreed to "refrain from  these men, and let them alone."

Charles Wesley noted in his Journal (April 30, 1746) on his way to the conference in Bristol that he had "conferred with several who have tasted the love of Christ, mostly under the preaching or prayers of our lay-helpers. How can anyone dare deny that they are sent of God? O that all who have the outward call, were as inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to preach!"

In the British Conference of 1746, we find the reference to the office of exhorter, along with a reference to the origin of what now has become the lay speaker's certificate that gives permission to preach or evangelize in United Methodist pulpits. In addition, there is recorded a requirement for an annual renewal