The United Methodist Church traces its lineage through the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. Hence it connects directly back to the early Christian communities that formed during the New Testament times. Furthermore, the episcopacy of these Christian denominations follows an unbroken chain of bishops back to the beginnings of the Christian church, the so-called "Apostolic Succession". According to church tradition, the bishops (or supervising elders) are consecrated by laying on of hands from existing bishops.

The Methodist lineage, however, includes an irregularity in its history. John Wesley was an elder in the Church of England when he founded the Methodist movement. After the American Revolution, the Church of England would not send its own priests to serve the new nation. Although Wesley was not officially a bishop in the Church of England, he effectively functioned as a supervising elder of Methodism, including training preachers and appointing them to charges. Drawing upon a precedent that he found in the early church at Alexandria, Wesley concluded that presbyters were permitted to ordain bishops in times of emergency when no other bishop was available. In 1784, Wesley ordained Thomas Coke as superintendent for the Methodist churches and sent him to America to ordain Francis Asbury as co-superintendent. Soon thereafter, Coke and Asbury adopted the historic title of "bishop". Since that time, all Methodist bishops have followed a traditional consecration process involving the laying on of hands by other bishops.

In 1999, Sarah Heaner Lancaster was ordained an elder in The United Methodist Church by Bishop William Oden of the North Texas Conference. Bishop Oden's consecration can be traced back to subsequent bishops all the way to the Apostle Paul and thus to Jesus Christ. The following list shows the Apostolic succession of bishops, along with the year that they were consecrated.