Methodism Reborn: The Wesleyan Methodist Church in the South Pacific

by Lindsay Cameron

There have been two denominations operating in the South Pacific (Australasia) that have used the name of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. The first was from Britain, with class meetings recorded in Sydney, Australia from 1811. This denomination spread across the South Pacific in one of history's most successful periods of missionary expansion but, from 1901, the influence of Methodism began to decline. Radical changes to traditional teachings and practices were impacting global Methodism, with the results felt keenly in Australia and New Zealand. In 1902 the Australian-led Wesleyan Methodist Church merged with other Methodists to form the Methodist Church of Australasia. In 1977, after decades of decline, the Methodist Church ceased to exist in Australia altogether as it merged with parts of the Presbyterian and Congregational churches.
Meanwhile, in 1946, a second mission named the Wesleyan Methodist Church was launched in Melbourne, Australia. This group was led by an Australian ex-serviceman with connections to the American holiness stream of Methodism. Progress was painfully slow but ministry gradually spread from Australia to Papua New Guinea, Bougainville, the Solomon Islands and New Zealand. In 2012 the Wesleyan Methodist Church entered a new era of regional influence as the South Pacific Regional Conference was inaugurated.
This book tells an extraordinary story of Methodism reborn! An overview of the growth and decline of British Methodism provides a backdrop to a detailed, thoroughly-researched history of the arrival and expansion of the modern-day Wesleyan Methodist Church in the South Pacific. Here is a true-life narrative with insights into Methodism’s internal struggles, the evangelical/liberal theological divide, church-planting strategies and the struggles of church leadership in a secular society.

272 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 12, 2017