From that experience of brotherhood in Christ came the United Brethren movement--a religious fellowship sharing much in common with the Methodists in the 1760s and 1770s, except for the fact that the United Brethren focused their preaching on German-speaking people in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Two years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence Otterbein took a pastorate in Baltimore. Sometime during the ensuing war the Mennonites decided Boehm's evangelistic efforts were not in accord with their traditions and put him and his followers out of their church. During the same period Otterbein and others influenced by his preaching and Boehm's met several times in Maryland and agreed to form groups so that "those united may encourage one another, pray and sing in unison, and watch over one another's conduct." These groups grew and, although the war disrupted the traveling of preachers, they were ready to become more formally organized about the time when the Methodist Episcopal Church was established and during the era when Jacob Albright was joining the founders of what is now United Methodism.