The Evangelical Methodist Church in Uruguay is a member of the
World Methodist Council
The World Methodist Council (WMC), founded in 1881, is a consultative body and association of churches in the Methodist tradition. It comprises 80 member denominations in 138 countries which together represent an estimated 80 million people; this ...
. It has 1,000 members and 12 congregations.
It is also an autonomous affiliate of the
United Methodist Church
The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelica ...
.
History
The church was founded by
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
missionaries in the mid-1800s. In 1893 it became a district, when the Latin America Conference was formed. In 1952 the Uruguay provisional Conference was formed; in 1968 it became autonomous.
Social issues
Women are able to be ordained in the denomination, and from 1994 to 2000 the president of the church was a lay woman,
Beatriz Ferrari.
The church has also "resolved that pastors that wish to minister to homosexuals could do so freely". As a result, some congregations and ministers have provided blessing services for same-gender couples.
References
Methodism in Uruguay
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