The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the A.M.E. Church or AME, is a predominantly African-American Methodist denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The African Methodist Episcopal Church is the first independent Protestant denomination to be founded by black people, though it welcomes and has members of all ethnicities. It was founded by the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1816 from several black Methodist congregations in the mid-Atlantic area that wanted to escape the discrimination that was commonplace in society. It was among the first denominations in the United States to be founded for this reason, rather than theological distinctions and has persistently advocated for the civil and human rights of African Americans through social improvement, religious autonomy, and political engagement, while always being open to people of all racial backgrounds. Allen, a deacon in Methodist Episcopal Church, was consecrated its first bishop in 1816 by a conference of five churches from Philadelphia to Baltimore. The denomination then expanded west and south, particularly after the Civil War. By 1906, the AME had a membership of about 500,000, more than the combined total of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, making it the largest major African-American Methodist denomination.
Absalom Jones was an African-American abolitionist and clergyman who became prominent in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Disappointed at the racial discrimination he experienced in a local Methodist church, he founded the Free African Society with Richard Allen in 1787, a mutual aid society for African Americans in the city. The Free African Society included many people newly freed from slavery after the American Revolutionary War.
The Christian Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) Church is a historically black denomination within the broader context of Wesleyan Methodism founded and organized by John Wesley in England in 1844 and established in America as the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784. It is considered to be a mainline denomination. The CME Church was organized on December 16, 1870 in Jackson, Tennessee by 41 former slave members with the full support of their white sponsors in their former Methodist Episcopal Church, South who met to form an organization that would allow them to establish and maintain their own polity. They ordained their own bishops and ministers without their being officially endorsed or appointed by the white-dominated body. They called this fellowship the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America, which it remained until their successors adopted the current name in 1954. The Christian Methodist Episcopal today has a church membership of people from all racial backgrounds. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology.
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, or the AME Zion Church or AMEZ, is a historically African-American Christian denomination based in the United States. It was officially formed in 1821 in New York City, but operated for a number of years before then. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology.
Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Bethel AME Church, Greater Bethel AME Church or Union Bethel AME Church may refer to:
Black Methodism in the United States is the Methodist tradition within the Black Church, largely consisting of congregations in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) and African Methodist Episcopal Zion denominations.
Bethel Methodist Church or Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church or Old Bethel Methodist Church may refer to:
Union Methodist Episcopal Church and variations may refer to:
St. Joseph's Episcopal Church may refer to:
Mt. Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church or other variants thereof, may refer to:
African Church may refer to:
St. Paul A.M.E. Church or Saint Paul's African Methodist Episcopal Church or variations may refer to:
Episcopal Church may refer to various churches in the Anglican, Methodist, and Open Episcopal traditions.
Mount Zion Methodist Church, or variations, may refer to:
Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church may refer to:
Campbell Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church or with AME abbreviation may refer to:
St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church may refer to:
Mount Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church may refer to:
In Methodism, a steward is a member of a local congregation and district who is appointed by their pastor to help in the practical life of the church. The position of stewards is a hallmark of classic Methodism. Their duties include greeting all those who attend church upon their arrival, assisting in the distribution of Holy Communion, counting the tithes and offerings given to the church, and ensuring that the local preacher is cared for when he arrives to preach at a church. This includes the steward providing a travelling local preacher with a meal at the steward's home after the service of worship as historic Methodism teaches Sunday Sabbatarianism, which prohibits dining at restaurants on the Lord's Day. Subsets of certain in some Methodist connexions, such as the Wesleyan Methodist Church, included Circuit Stewards, Society Stewards, Chapel Stewards, Poor Stewards, and Communion Stewards. The 1908 Book of Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church provided the following standard to be used in appointing stewards, which continues to be found in the Book of Disciplines of certain successor connexions today: "Let the Stewards be persons of solid piety who are members of the Church in the Charge, who both know and love Methodist Doctrine and Discipline, and are of good natural and acquired abilities to transact the temporal business of the Church." In the historic Methodist practice concerning church membership, probationers seeking full membership in their Methodist connexion, after their six-month proving period, sit before the Leaders and Stewards' Meeting of the local congregation, which consists of Class Leaders and Stewards, where they are to provide "satisfactory assurance both of the correctness of his faith and of his willingness to observe and keep the rules of the church." Following this, the Leaders and Stewards' Meeting approves the probationer for full membership in the church. This traditional practice of the Methodist Episcopal Church in admitting full members continues in many Methodist connexions today, such as the Lumber River Conference of the Holiness Methodist Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
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