Christoph Gottlob Müller
Christoph Gottlob Müller ( born November 11, 1785 Winnenden, † March 17, 1858 ibid ) was the first native Methodism to Germany.
Life and work
Christoph Gottlob Müller was the son of a butcher from Winnenden near Stuttgart. He learned from his father the butcher's trade and then went on tour. In order not to have to go with the Napoleonic troops in the war, he escaped in 1806 from Strasbourg to England. There he came with the revival and holiness of the Methodists in contact and joined the local Methodist church. He was Klass leader, a kind of group leader, and preached occasionally. In 1830 he visited his parents and brought Methodist piety in pietistic groups of his former home.
Although he traveled back again to his family, small groups who were close to the Methodist movement originated in and around Winnenden. The Winnender Flaschnermeister Imanuel Strubel (1788-1856) asked after a short time the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society in London about to send Müller as a missionary to Württemberg. Due to lack of knowledge of the Missionary Society was initially reluctant, sent him in February 1831 but then. In September of the same year followed Müller's family moved to London.
Mueller was initially the Moravian Church near and spoke at their meetings, but then pulled back from religious differences of the Moravians and held meetings in his parents' house, where he testified his personal Christian faith. Many people joined in, and then the movement spread. The upper office Waiblingen was not uneasy about the feed to the miller, so that he was repeatedly questioned by the bailiff and the county government even aufkündigte him in July 1832, the residence permit, which was later recanted. Anyway, Müller and his people did not come with the state church in serious conflict, because the visitors of his meetings continue visited the regional church services and were the sacraments, baptism and communion, spend out of their pastors. As John Wesley before him, Miller refused to separate from the state church. Rather Müller tried to awaken the spiritual life within the state church and also maintained a friendly relationship to Winnender pastor 's home.
Already in 1835 reported Müller to London that his community in Winnenden counted 326 members. End of 1839 there were 622 members and 64 employees, who held 80 meetings a week. Until 1848 the size of the Methodist community had grown to about 1500 to 2000 people. In that year, Müller made his missionary work due to asthma suffering to a large extent. Christoph Gottlob Müller died in 1858 and left behind " pietistic communities with Methodist paint " (lit.: cited in Steckel, Summer, p.86) - as its direct successor Lyth.
The movement ( Wesleyan Methodist Community ) spread under Müller's successors John Lyth ( 1821-1886 ) and later John Barratt ( 1832-1892 ) - both were ordained pastors of the British Methodist Church - gradually to Baden, Bavaria, Austria, Bohemia and Silesia from. It was in 1897 incorporated into the Methodist Episcopal Church.