What is the difference between Methodists and Presbyterians?

[Mister_Rik]

@Pleonast

There is a lot variation in the communion, from one congregation to another. Details like frequency: weekly vs monthly (most common) vs yearly, or grape juice (most common) vs wine, or big cup vs little sipper cup (most common), or leavened (most common) vs unleavened bread, or whole loaf vs precut cubes (most common). The one absolutely universal part of a Methodist communion is that it is “open table”–anyone who feels the call of Christ is allowed to partake, whether or not they’re a member of the congregation or the Methodist Church or even baptized.

I have attended the local Foursquare church for the last 20 years or so, with a pastor who grew up and started his ministry with the United Church of Christ (he got drummed out of the UCC because he started questioning their doctrines, and eventually hooked up with Foursquare because its doctrines lined up well with his own). I don’t know how it works in other Foursquare congregations, but our communion services line up almost exactly with the “most common” items you described above. The only differences are that we use big cups of grape juice, and dip the bread into the juice and take both together; we also use both “whole loaf”, which the pastor breaks symbolically, and precut cubes that the congregation actually eat.

@Dr.Conrad_Shadowdale

As a final thought, my mother once attended a Methodist Church where drinking, smoking and dancing were verboten. As an addition to the sin catalogue, the minister said that “every motion picture watched was another brick in the road to hell.”

The Church of the Nazarene I attended for a couple years had the same “policies”. Not that I observed any of them.

@jsgoddess

My former brother-in-law was the son of a Presbyterian minister. He called Presbyterians “God’s frozen people.”

I used to work for a Presbyterian. His term was “the frozen chosen”

Anecdote: There is a young woman (does 31 still count as “young woman”?) at my church who is a classically-trained singer. While she was away at college about a decade ago, she decided to join a mostly-black gospel choir at her university, quite a change from her normal repertoire. She brought that whole choir back to our church to perform a concert. Her frequent local accompanist, who is not a member of our church, was in the audience for the concert. This young woman introduced one of the songs, and encouraged anybody who felt like dancing in the aisles to do so.

Her accompanist shouted, from the middle of the room, “Hey! Watch it! There’s Presbyterians here!” (referring, of course, to himself and his wife).

It took a while for the laughter to die down

[thelurkinghorror]

@Umbridge

Are you Lutheran or raised Lutheran, and if not, do you have a Lutheran ancestor?

It’s a stereotype, as I said. But the fact is that places like North Dakota (35%, the largest faith there), South Dakota (27%, looks like either #1 or #2) and Minnesota (17% ELCA+LCMS, if my math is right). And these places have among the largest percentages of Norwegian, Swedish, etc. (German-Americans are everywhere). The name part was a joke.

[Umbridge]

@thelurkinghorror

It’s a stereotype, as I said. But the fact is that places like North Dakota (35%, the largest faith there), South Dakota (27%, looks like either #1 or #2) and Minnesota (17% ELCA+LCMS, if my math is right). And these places have among the largest percentages of Norwegian, Swedish, etc. (German-Americans are everywhere). The name part was a joke.

So, did you grow up in a Lutheran community?

[kaylasdad99]

@jasg

Methodists never have sex while standing, might be mistaken for dancing

I’ll note that in the musical “Hello, Dolly!” when Ernestina Money (his backup date at the Harmonia Gardens, after the Irene Malloy assignation falls through) demands to dance, Horace Vandergelder responds: “The Vandergelders don’t dance, Miss Money; we’re Presbyterians.”