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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 historic Wesleyan Methodist denomination in Australia up to 1 January 1902 merged into the Methodist Church of Australasia.)
The beginnings of the current Wesleyan Methodist Church in Australia may be traced to 1945, when the Rev. Dr. Kingsley Ridgway offered himself as a Melbourne based "field representative" for a possible Australian branch of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America, after meeting an American serviceman who was a member of that denomination. [1]
Kingsley Ridgway's legacy continued to be felt in the church, with his son, the Rev. Dr. James Ridgway, providing denominational and institutional leadership over many years, and grandson the Rev. Kent Ridgway serving as Southern District Superintendent.
Contrary to a popular assumption, it is not a "continuing Methodist Church," formed as a result of the merger in 1977 of Congregationalist, Methodist and Presbyterian congregations to form the Uniting Church in Australia. It was never a part of the merger negotiations with those bodies that formed the Uniting Church, though some members and ministers, unhappy with the Basis of Union, switched allegiance to this organisation.[ citation needed ]
The Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia saw increased growth in the 1980s, particularly in Queensland. [2] As well as aiming at new convert growth, Wesleyan Methodists have welcomed into their membership those seeking an alternative to more liberal Protestant denominations, as well as Pentecostals looking for a church more grounded in historic Christianity. The 45th National Conference held in January 2004 reported 77 local churches, 96 ordained ministers, 2017 members and an average main Sunday service attendance of 3702 persons.
From the late 1990s, the Australian church has fostered and encouraged the emergence of Wesleyan Methodist churches in New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, and Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.
At the 2008 South Pacific Convention and National Conference held at Phillip Island, Victoria, a new National Superintendent was appointed, Lindsay Cameron, who brought to the position a desire to see the denomination strengthened through the upholding and proclamation of the uniqueness of Wesleyan doctrinal teaching.
There are 54 congregations currently listed on the denominational website.
The church is theologically conservative and Arminian in theology. Congregations range from being traditional in their worship style to more charismatic. It appreciates both its revivalist and holiness heritage as well as its roots in John Wesley's Anglicanism. Along with Nazarenes and the Salvation Army, it has a strong commitment to the ordination of women, a position that in part arises out of its interpretive approach to the Bible and in part out of its revivalist heritage.
Historically, the church may be seen both as a new religious movement, emerging out of the post-war context of greater engagement between Australians and Americans and at the same time as a continuation of the long-standing Holiness and Revivalist strain within Australian evangelicalism. [3]
The associated Kingsley College, Melbourne provides a ministry training program that offers four awards from Certificate IV to Graduate Certificate. Kingsley College delivers training under the auspices of Unity College Australia RTO 6330. Kingsley College has been the ministry training arm of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia since 1949. That training of lay people and ministerial candidates continues through Kingsley Community training centres located around Australia.
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 Anglicanism originating out of the Church of England in the 18th century 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, and today has about 80 million adherents worldwide.
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, about 870,200 Australians identified with the church; in the 2011 census, the 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 Church of the Nazarene is a Christian denomination that emerged in North America from the 19th-century Wesleyan-Holiness movement within Methodism. It is headquartered in Lenexa, Kansas. 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 Holiness movement is a Christian movement that emerged chiefly within 19th-century Methodism, and to a lesser extent influenced other traditions such as Quakerism, Anabaptism, and Restorationism. The movement is historically distinguished by its emphasis on the doctrine of a second work of grace, generally called entire sanctification or Christian perfection and by the belief that the Christian life should be free of sin. For the Holiness movement, "the term 'perfection' signifies completeness of Christian character; its freedom from all sin, and possession of all the graces of the Spirit, complete in kind." A number of evangelical Christian denominations, parachurch organizations, and movements emphasize those beliefs as central doctrine.
The Confessing Movement is a largely lay-led theologically conservative Christian movement that opposes the influence of theological liberalism and theological progressivism currently within several mainline Protestant denominations and seeks to return them to its view of orthodox doctrine, or form a new denomination and disfellowship (excommunicate) them if the situation becomes untenable. Those who eventually deem dealing with theological liberalism and theological progressivism within their churches and denominations as not being tenable anymore would later join or start Confessional Churches and/or Evangelical Churches that continue with the traditions of their respective denominations and maintaining orthodox doctrine while being ecclesiastically separate from the Mainline Protestant denominations.
The Wesleyan Church, also known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church and Wesleyan Holiness Church depending on the region, is a Methodist Christian denomination in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Indonesia, and Australia. The church is aligned with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement and has roots in the teachings of John Wesley. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian doctrine and is a member of the World Methodist Council.
Kingsley College was until 2008 a Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia school of theology located in Melbourne, Australia.
The Congregational Christian Churches were a Protestant Christian denomination that operated in the U.S. from 1931 through 1957. On the latter date, most of its churches joined the Evangelical and Reformed Church in a merger to become the United Church of Christ. Others created the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches or joined the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference that formed earlier in 1945. During the forementioned period, its churches were organized nationally into a General Council, with parallel state conferences, sectional associations, and missionary instrumentalities. Congregations, however, retained their local autonomy and these groups were legally separate from the congregations.
Pilgrim Holiness Church (PHC) or International Apostolic Holiness Church (IAHC) is a Christian denomination associated with the holiness movement that split from the Methodist Episcopal Church through the efforts of Martin Wells Knapp in 1897. It was first organized in Cincinnati, Ohio, as the International Holiness Union and Prayer League (IHU/IAHC). Knapp, founder of the IAHC, ordained and his Worldwide Missions Board sent Charles and Lettie Cowman who had attended God's Bible School to Japan in December 1900. By the International Apostolic Holiness Churches Foreign Missionary Board and the co-board of the Revivalist the Cowmans had been appointed the General Superintendents and the Kilbournes the vice-General Superintendent for Korea, Japan and China December 29, 1905. The organization later became the Pilgrim Holiness Church in 1922, the majority of which merged with the Wesleyan Methodists in 1968 to form the Wesleyan Church.
The conservative holiness movement is a loosely defined group of theologically conservative Christian denominations with the majority being Methodists whose teachings are rooted in the theology of John Wesley, and a minority being Quakers (Friends) that emphasize the doctrine of George Fox, as well as River Brethren who emerged out of the Radical Pietist revival, and Holiness Restorationists in the tradition of Daniel Sidney Warner. Schisms began to occur in the 19th century and this movement became distinct from parent Holiness bodies in the mid-20th century amid disagreements over modesty in dress, entertainment, and other "old holiness standards" reflective of the related emphases on the Wesleyan–Arminian doctrine of outward holiness or the Quaker teaching on the testimony of simplicity or the River Brethren and Restorationist teachings on nonconformity to the world, depending on the denomination. Christian denominations aligned with the conservative holiness movement share a belief in Christian perfection, though they differ on various doctrines, such as the celebration of the sacraments and observance of ordinances, which is related to the denominational tradition—Methodist, Quaker, Anabaptist or Restorationist. Many denominations identifying with the conservative holiness movement, though not all, are represented in the Interchurch Holiness Convention; while some denominations have full communion with one another, other bodies choose to be isolationist.
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.
The Methodist Church of Australasia was a Methodist denomination based in Australia.
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.
The Evangelical Church of North America (ECNA) is a Wesleyan-Holiness, Protestant Christian denomination headquartered in Clackamas, Oregon. As of 2000, the Church had 12,475 members in 133 local churches. The Church sponsors missionaries in seven countries.
The Churches of Christ in Christian Union (CCCU) is a Wesleyan-Holiness and Restorationist Christian denomination.
The People's Methodist Church was a Wesleyan-Holiness denomination in the Southern United States from 1938–1962 founded by revivalist Jim H. Green.
The history of the Church of the Nazarene has been divided into seven overlapping periods by the staff of the Nazarene archives in Lenexa, Kansas: (1) Parent Denominations (1887–1907); (2) Consolidation (1896–1915); (3) Search for Solid Foundations (1911–1928); (4) Persistence Amid Adversity (1928–1945); (5) Mid-Century Crusade for Souls (1945–1960); (6) Toward the Post-War Evangelical Mainstream (1960–1980); and (7) Internationalization (1976-2003).
The Evangel Church was a Wesleyan-Holiness Evangelical Christian denomination from 1933 to 1960.
The National Association of Wesleyan Evangelicals is a Wesleyan-Holiness Christian network of churches and ministers concentrated mostly in the Southern United States.
The Bethel Methodist Church is a Wesleyan-Holiness denomination. It consists of five congregations in Texas.
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