 | This article needs to be updated.(May 2013) |
The Chinese Methodist Church in Australia is based in Melbourne. [1] [2]
The theology of the Church is in line with Methodism worldwide. It is Wesleyan in theology and its liturgy contains both traditional and contemporary services.
The Church was started by members from the Methodist Churches of Malaysia and Singapore who were either sent to Australia or emigrated there. [3] The first congregation was set up in Melbourne in 1986 by Rev James Ha, a missionary of the Sarawak Chinese Annual Conference. [4]
It was originally known as the Methodist Church in Australia but disagreement rose over its name with the Uniting Church in Australia, with the latter refusing to allow its entry into the World Methodist Council. To solve this disagreement, the name was changed to the Chinese Methodist Church in Australia in 2002. [4] After the Uniting Church in Australia dropped its veto, it was subsequently welcomed into the World Methodist Council. [5]
The first bishop was the Reverend, Dr. James Ha, who was elected to office on 28 November 2002, when the Annual Conference was officially formed. The second bishop was the Reverend, Dr. Albert Chiew, who was elected to the office on 28 November 2006. On 25 November 2010, the Reverend Dr. James Kwang was elected as the third bishop; he was re-elected on 27 November 2014. On the 23 November 2018, Rev. Dr. Albert Wong was elected as the fourth bishop. The outgoing bishop after serving two terms step aside for the election of the new bishop. Bishop Dr. James Kwang was conferred bishop emeritus by the Annual Conference on the same day. On 24 November 2022, the Annual Conference elected their fifth bishop, Reverend Milton Nee was elected to serve the new term from 2023 to 2026.
In 2023, CMCA had 25 churches in most Australian territories (there are none in the Northern Territories); [5] it also oversees some mission work in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
The denomination created an English-language publication called Connect in 2019. [6]
The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) was founded on 22 June 1977, when most congregations of the Methodist Church of Australasia, about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and almost all the churches of the Congregational Union of Australia united under the Basis of Union. According to the church, it had 243,000 members in 2018. In the 2016 census, 870,183 Australians identified with the church, but that figure fell to 673,260 in the 2021 census. In the 2011 census, that figure was 1,065,796. The UCA is Australia's third-largest Christian denomination, behind the Catholic and the Anglican Churches. There are around 2,000 UCA congregations, and 2001 National Church Life Survey (NCLS) research indicated that average weekly attendance was about 10 per cent of census figures. The UCA is one of Australia's largest non-government providers of community and health services. Its service network consists of over 400 agencies, institutions, and parish missions, with its areas of service including aged care, hospitals, children, youth and family, disability, employment, emergency relief, drug and alcohol abuse, youth homelessness and suicide. Affiliated agencies include UCA's community and health-service provider network, affiliated schools, the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, Frontier Services and UnitingWorld.
The Church of South India (CSI) is a united Protestant Church in India. It is the result of union of a number of Protestant denominations in South India that occurred after the independence of India.
Sir Alan Edgar Walker was an Australian theologian, evangelist, social commentator, broadcaster and activist, and the Superintendent of Wesley Mission.
The Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia is a Christian denomination with its origins in Wesleyan Methodism. It is the organisational name for contemporary The Wesleyan Church in Australia.
The Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga is a Methodist denomination in Tonga. It is the largest Christian denomination in the nation and is often mistaken to be its state church. It has its roots in the arrival of the first missionaries from the London Missionary Society and the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist Mission Society, the latter of which cemented its Methodist identity.
St Michael's Uniting Church is a Uniting church located on Collins Street in central Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Originally the Collins Street Independent Church, a Congregational Union of Australia church, St Michael's has become well-known as a centre of liberal theology and political radicalism under its recent Minister, Dr Francis Macnab (1971–2016). In 2020, the church appointed a new Minister, Rev Dr Margaret Mayman.
The Methodist Church of Australasia was a Methodist denomination based in Australia. It existed from 1902 to 1977, when the Uniting Church in Australia was formed. It did missionary work in Australia through two organisations: the Methodist Overseas Mission, which focused mainly on Aboriginal Australians, and the Methodist Inland Mission, which served settler communities in remote parts of Australia.
The Methodist Church in Singapore (MCS) is the church that Methodists in Singapore belong to. The Church has 46 churches island-wide with around 42,000 members, and is the largest mainline Protestant denomination in Singapore. Its current bishop and head of the Church is Bishop Philip Lim, who was elected at the 13th Session of the General Conference on 6 December 2024
Wayne Kenton Clymer was an American bishop of the United Methodist Church, elected in 1972. He also distinguished himself as a pastor in the Evangelical United Brethren Church (E.U.B.); as a Preacher and Lecturer; as a professor, Dean and President of an E.U.B./U.M. Seminary; as a Delegate to United Nations and Ecumenical church bodies; and as an author.
The Methodist Church in Malaysia is a body within the Methodist tradition in Malaysia. With approximately 200,000 members in more than 1034 congregations, it is the second largest Protestant denomination in the country after Sidang Injil Borneo. The current bishop of the Methodist Church in Malaysia is the Rev. Dr. T. Jeyakumar.
Hobart Baumann Amstutz was a bishop of the American Methodist Church and the United Methodist Church, elected in 1956.
The Evangelical Methodist Church (EMC) is a Christian denomination in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. The denomination reported 399 churches in the United States, Mexico, Burma/Myanmar, Canada, Philippines and several European and African nations in 2018, and a total of 34,656 members worldwide.
Roy Hunter Short was an American bishop of The Methodist Church and the United Methodist Church, elected in 1948.
Raymond LeRoy Archer, was an American bishop of The Methodist Church. He was elected in 1950.
The Reverend Professor Ian James Mitchell Haire AC KSJ is a theologian and Christian minister of religion. He is emeritus professor of theology of Charles Sturt University, Canberra, Australia and past executive director of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture. He was formerly the fourth president of the National Council of Churches in Australia and the ninth president of the Uniting Church in Australia.
The Lutheran Church in Malaysia or LCM is one of four Lutheran bodies in Malaysia. It currently has 52 congregations nationwide with a total of 6,736 baptised members and is the largest entirely Lutheran body in the country. Until 2012, the body was known as the Lutheran Church in Malaysia and Singapore.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malaysia or ELCM is one of the four Lutheran bodies in Malaysia. It currently has 21 congregations nationwide with a total of 3,650 members.
The Sabah Methodist Church is a body within the Methodist tradition in Malaysia. With approximately 200,000 members in more than 1034 congregations, it is the largest Protestant denomination in the country. The current bishop of the Methodist Church in Malaysia is the Rev Dr Ong Hwai Teik.
Coralie Ling is an Australian retired Christian minister. She was the second woman ordained in the Methodist Church of Australasia and the first Methodist woman ordained in the state of Victoria. In 1977, she became a minister in the Uniting Church in Australia when it was formed as a merger of Methodist, Congregationalist and Presbyterian churches.
 | This Methodism-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |