The Methodist Church of New Zealand ( mi, Te Hāhi Weteriana o Aotearoa) is a Methodist denomination headquartered in

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. It 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 ...

History

The

Methodist movement 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 br ...

was started by

John Wesley John Wesley (; 2 March 1791) was an English people, English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The soci ...

, an 18th-century

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

minister. Methodist

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

were among the earliest Europeans to come to New Zealand. Missionaries Samuel Leigh and William White established the first

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charles W ...

mission, Wesleydale at

Kaeo Kaeo (Māori: ''Kāeo'') is a township in the Far North District of New Zealand, located some northwest of Kerikeri. The town takes its name from the ''kāeo'' or New Zealand freshwater mussel, which is found in the nearby rivers. Sanfords ...

on the

Whangaroa Harbour Whangaroa Harbour (; ), previously spelled Wangaroa Harbour, is an inlet on the northern coast of Northland, New Zealand. Whangaroa Bay and the Pacific Ocean are to the north. The small settlements of Totara North and Saies are on the west si ...

, on 6 June 1823. Leigh worked alongside Anglican missionary

Samuel Marsden Samuel Marsden (25 June 1765 – 12 May 1838) was an English-born priest of the Church of England in Australia and a prominent member of the Church Missionary Society, believed to have introduced Christianity to New Zealand. Marsden was a prom ...

. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Methodist Church, with its emphasis on personal salvation and social responsibility, played an important part in the

temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emph ...

and other moral debates. Writer and social reformer

Percy Paris Percy Alonzo Paris is a Canadians, Canadian former politician from Nova Scotia. He represented the constituency of Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly for the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party between 2006-2013. ...

became president of the Conference in 1938. The Annual Conference has always been the governing body of the Methodist Church of New Zealand. Since the early 1900s the proportion of New Zealanders who are Methodist has declined from 10% to a reported 2.6% in the 2013 census. At the 1983 conference the church made a conscious decision to work towards inclusion of all ethnicities and cultures. The denomination is supportive of women ministers and clergy in same-sex relationships. In 1999 the conference decided to allow ministers to bless same-sex relationships. In 2013, when

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same Legal sex and gender, sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being ...

was

legalized Legalization is the process of removing a legal prohibition against something which is currently not legal. Legalization is a process often applied to what are regarded, by those working towards legalization, as victimless crimes, of which one ...

in New Zealand congregations that opted to do so were able to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies. , there are 9,473 Methodist Church members who worship as part of a Methodist Church

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

Ecumenical relations

The Methodist Church of New Zealand is a member of the

World Council of Churches The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most juri ...

and the

Christian Conference of Asia The Christian Conference of Asia is a regional ecumenical organisation representing 15 National Councils and over 100 denominations (churches) in New Zealand, Australia, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, East Timor, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Laos ...

. Since 2016 the church has participated in an ecumenical platform, National Dialogue for Christian Unity (NDCU), along with

Anglicans Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the l ...

and

Roman Catholics The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

References

External links

*
Methodist Church
–

Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand ''Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand'' is an online encyclopedia established in 2001 by the New Zealand Government's Ministry for Culture and Heritage. The web-based content was developed in stages over the next several years; the first s ...

Methodist denominations Methodism in New Zealand Members of the World Council of Churches Organisations based in Christchurch Religion in Christchurch {{NewZealand-org-stub