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A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
The Christian Church is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th century as a loose association of churches working towards Christian unity, then slowly forming quasi-denominational structures through missionary societies, regional associations, and an international convention. In 1968, the Disciples of Christ officially adopted a denominational structure at which time a group of churches left to remain nondenominational.
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother Charles Wesley were also significant early leaders in the movement. They were named Methodists for "the methodical way in which they carried out their Christian faith". Methodism originated as a revival movement within the 18th-century Church of England and became a separate denomination after Wesley's death. The movement spread throughout the British Empire, the United States, and beyond because of vigorous missionary work, today claiming approximately 80 million adherents worldwide.
Mennonites are members of certain Christian groups belonging to the church communities of Anabaptist denominations named after Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings, Simons articulated and formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders, with the early teachings of the Mennonites founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus, which the original Anabaptist followers held with great conviction, despite persecution by various Roman Catholic and Protestant states. Mennonite beliefs were codified in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith in 1632, which affirmed "the baptism of believers only, the washing of the feet as a symbol of servanthood, church discipline, the shunning of the excommunicated, the non-swearing of oaths, marriage within the same church, strict nonresistance, and in general, more emphasis on true Christianity involving being Christian and obeying Christ".
The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PC(USA), is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the US, and known for its liberal stance on doctrine and its ordaining of women and members of the LGBT community as elders and ministers. The PC(USA) was established by the 1983 merger of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, whose churches were located in the Southern and border states, with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, whose congregations could be found in every state. The similarly named Presbyterian Church in America is a separate denomination whose congregations can also trace their history to the various schisms and mergers of Presbyterian churches in the United States. Unlike the PCA, the PC(USA) supports evangelical feminism and supports practise of same gender marriages. It also welcomes practicing gay and lesbian persons to serve in leadership positions as ministers, deacons, elders, and trustees.
The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2022 it has approximately 40,000 members in 1,284 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers
The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), also referred to simply as the Wisconsin Synod, is an American Confessional Lutheran denomination of Christianity. Characterized as theologically conservative, it was founded in 1850 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Church of the Nazarene is an evangelical Christian denomination that emerged in North America from the 19th-century Wesleyan-Holiness movement within Methodism. With its members commonly referred to as Nazarenes, it is the largest denomination in the world aligned with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement and is a member of the World Methodist Council.
The Free Church of England (FCE) is an episcopal church based in England. The church was founded when a number of congregations separated from the established Church of England in the middle of the 19th century.
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Anabaptist traditions, and with approximately 4,800 churches and 773,500 members. The United Church of Christ is a historical continuation of the General Council of Congregational Christian churches founded under the influence of New England Pilgrims and Puritans. Moreover, it also subsumed the third largest Calvinist group in the country, the German Reformed. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC. These two denominations, which were themselves the result of earlier unions, had their roots in Congregational, Lutheran, Evangelical, and Reformed denominations. At the end of 2014, the UCC's 5,116 congregations claimed 979,239 members, primarily in the U.S. In 2015, Pew Research estimated that 0.4 percent, or 1 million adult adherents, of the U.S. population self-identify with the United Church of Christ.
The Church of the United Brethren in Christ is an evangelical Christian denomination with churches in 17 countries. It is Protestant, with an episcopal structure and Arminian theology, with roots in the Mennonite and German Reformed communities of 18th-century Pennsylvania, as well as close ties to Methodism. It was organized in 1800 by Martin Boehm and Philip William Otterbein and is the first American denomination that was not transplanted from Europe. It emerged from United Brethren churches that were at first unorganized, and not all of which joined this church when it was formally organized in 1800, following a 1789 conference at the Otterbein Church.
The United Congregational Church in Southern Africa began with the work of the London Missionary Society, who sent missionaries like Dr. Theodorus van der Kemp to the Cape colony in 1799. He was established the first Congregational church in Cape Town in 1801. LMS missionaries like David Livingstone spread the Gospel among the Batswana and Amandbele peoples. After 1820 English and Welsh settlers established their own congregational congregations. Congregationalist missionaries from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions began work in KwaZulu-Natal in 1830, and several congregations of white settlers formed the Congregational Union of South Africa. These three bodies united to form the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa in 1967.
Christians in Nigeria comprise an estimated 49.3% of the population. Christians are dominant in the southern (south-east/south-south/South west and central region in Nigeria. According to the Pew Research Center, Nigeria has the largest Christian population of any country in Africa, with more than 80 million persons in Nigeria belonging to the church with various denominations. The majority of Christians in Nigeria are Protestant.
The Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA) is a Presbyterian church with congregations and missions throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, and Chile. Its beliefs—held in common with other members of the Reformed Presbyterian Global Alliance—place it in the conservative wing of the Reformed family of Protestant churches. Below the Bible—which is held as divinely inspired and without error—the church is committed to several "subordinate standards," together considered with its constitution: the Westminster Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms, along with its Testimony, Directory for Church Government, the Book of Discipline, and Directory for Worship.
Christianity is the largest religion practiced in Zimbabwe, accounted for more than 84% of the population. The arrival of Christianity dates back to the 16th century by Portuguese missionaries such as Fr. Gonsalo Da Silveira of the Roman Catholic Church. Christianity is embraced by the majority of the population. It is estimated 85 percent of Zimbabweans claim to be Christians, with approximately 62 percent regularly attending church services. Christian faith plays a very important role in the organization of Zimbabwean society.
Three missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints started proselyting to white English-speaking people in Cape Town in 1853. Most converts from this time emigrated to the United States. The mission was closed in 1865, but reopened in 1903.The South African government limited the amount of missionaries allowed to enter the country in 1921 and in 1955. Starting around 1930, a man had to trace his genealogy out of Africa to be eligible for the priesthood, since black people were not permitted to be ordained. In 1954 when church president David O. McKay visited South Africa, he removed the requirement for genealogical research for a man to be ordained, stipulating only that "there is no evidence of his having Negro blood in his veins".
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has had a presence in the island of Ireland since at least 1840, when the Mormon missionary John Taylor first preached in Newry. He and other missionaries converted a number of Irish people, forming a branch in Hillsborough, County Down. Many of the converted Irish saints emigrated in order to escape poverty, as well as to live in majority Latter Day Saint communities. Missionary efforts continued in the 1850s and a small branch was established in Dublin, but many members emigrated to Utah or lost interest in the church, and in 1867 the Irish mission was placed in the care of the British mission. A new branch was formed in Belfast in 1884 and a Dublin branch was reestablished in 1900. All of this occurred despite anti-Mormon disturbances by local Irish people.
The Presbyterian Church of the Philippines (PCP), officially The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the Philippines, is a growing evangelical, Bible-based Reformed church in the Philippines. It was officially founded in 1987 and the General Assembly was organized in September 1996.
References
- ↑ www.united-church.ca/partners/global/africa/zimbabwe Archived October 29, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Christoph Fasse. "Address data base of Reformed churches and institutions". reformiert-online.net. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
- ↑ "United Church of Christ in Zimbabwe". Archived from the original on February 8, 2013. Retrieved April 5, 2013.
- ↑ "Reformed Churches » Religion in Zimbabwe". relzim.org. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
