In 1856 the Methodist Episcopal Church From America started the mission in India. The Methodist Episcopal Church began its work in India in 1856, when William Butler came from America. He selected Oudh and Rohilkhand to work in and, being unable to secure a residence at Lucknow, began work at Bareilly. The first War of Independence broke up the work at Bareilly, but in 1858 Lucknow was occupied and Bareilly re-occupied and the work of the Mission started anew.
By 1864 the work had grown to such an extent that it was organized under the name of the India Mission Conference. Additional stations were occupied in Oudh, Rohilkhand, Garhwal, and Kumaon, and by 1876 The Methodist Episcopal Church had established work both along evangelistic and educational lines.
Methodist Churches were established in cities including Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Kanpur and Bangalore. Special revival meetings were held which led the church out of its boundaries and gave it a national status.
In 1870 marked, on the invitation of James M. Thoburn, an acknowledged leader in the Mission, evangelist William Taylor was invited to India to hold special revival meetings. On his arrival, he started his work at Lucknow and subsequently went to Kanpur. The work had thus far been confined to the territory East and North of the Ganges, but by that river; this move was the first step of expansion into all Southern Asia. There came into existence Methodist congregations in Kanpur, Bombay, Poona, Calcutta, Secunderabad, Madras, Bangalore, Nagpur and other cities.[8]
In 1873 the churches established by William Taylor were organized into the "Bombay-Bengal Mission." In 1876 the South India Annual Conference was organized, taking in all the territory outside the bounds of the original Upper India field. This was followed in 1888 by the organization of the Bengal Annual Conference, and in 1893 the Bombay and North-West India Annual Conferences were separated. Between 1871 and 1900 the Methodist Episcopal Church expanded to become a national Church throughout Southern and South-Eastern Asia, with work carried on in twelve languages, extending from Manila to Quetta and from Lahore to Madras; and the Christian community increased from 1,835 to 111,654.
In 1904 the field was again sub-divided by the organization of the Central Provinces Mission Conference, which was followed by setting the work of Burma apart and organizing it as a Mission Conference. In 1921 two Annual Conferences, Lucknow and Gujarat were brought into existence and another division of the field was made in 1922 when the Indus River Annual Conference was organized. In 1925 the Hyderabad Annual Conference was separated from the South India Annual Conference. In 1956 Agra Annual Conference was separated from Delhi Annual Conference and Moradabad Annual Conference from the North India Annual Conference. In 1960 the Karachi Provisional Annual Conference was organized. Thus in 95 years from 1865 to 1960, the one Conference in India had grown into 13, covering the whole of Southern Asia.
In this period the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church spread beyond India. Under the leadership of James M. Thoburn, Burma was entered in 1879, where John E. Robinson became the pioneer missionary, and in 1885 the work in Malaysia was begun by the establishment of a mission at Singapore, the pioneer here being William F. Oldham. In 1899, when the Philippines came into the possession of the United States of America, James M. Thoburn entered Manila and established the Church; Homer C. Stuntz was one of the pioneer workers. All these missionary leaders later became Bishops of the Church.
In 1870 the first missionaries of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church came. Two young ladies arrived that year: Isabella Thoburn, to work in the education of India's girls and women, and physician Clara Swain, to work in medicine, the first female doctor to undertake such work in Asia[citation needed].
Evangelistic work in the villages of northern India resulted in the baptism of large numbers of people from the deprived classes.
In 1920 the Methodist Missionary Society was organized to supervise missionary work in India.
In 1930 the Central Conference of southern Asia elected the first national bishop.
Since the Independence of India in 1947 all bishops have been Indian nationals.
Missionaries were sent to Borneo in 1956 and to the Fiji islands in 1963.
Since 1928 the MCI was engaged in union negotiations in North India.
In 1970 the Central Conference voted against the plan of union, but dialogue with the Church of North India continued.
In 1981 the Methodist Church in India was established as an "autonomous affiliated" church in relation with the United Methodist Church.[6][7] The church is now independent in organization and has adopted its own constitution and book of discipline and articles of faith.
Beliefs
The Methodist Church in India says that it understands itself as the body of Christ in and for the world as part of the Church universal. Its stated purpose is to understand the love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, to bear witness of this love to all people and to make them his disciples.
The MCI runs 102 boarding schools and 155 village schools in which over 60,000 children are enrolled.
89 residential hostels cater for 6,540 boys and girls.
The Church also operates 19 College and vocational training institutions, 25 hospitals and health care centres, and many community welfare and development programmes in the country
1 Emmanuel Methodist Church, Vepery, Chennai
2 Methodist Tamil Church, Vepery, Chennai
3 Anna Nagar Methodist Church, Anna Nagar, Chennai
4 Holy Trinity Methodist Church, Haddo, Andaman Islands
5 Methodist Tamil Church, Shoal Bay, Andaman Islands
6 Methodist Tamil Church, Bamboo Flat, Andaman Islands
7 Methodist Tamil Church, Namunaghar, Andaman Islands
8 Zion Methodist Church, Pondicherry
9 Emmanuel Methodist Church, Pondicherry
10 St. John's Methodist Tamil Church Madurai
11 Apostolic Methodist Church, Coimbatore
12 Emmanuel methodist Tamil Church, Pudur, Ambattur, Chennai
Bareilly
Bareilly served as the headquarters for the Methodist Church in India, hence, the Christ Methodist Church in Civil Lines, Bareilly is the second oldest Methodist Church building in India. The oldest being in Nainital, Uttarakhand.
^"Church of North India". World Methodist Council. 9 November 2019. Retrieved 25 June 2020. The Church of North India is a united church which came into being as the result of a union of six churches on 29th November 1970. The six churches were: The Council of the Baptist Churches in Northern India, The Church of the Brethren in India; The Disciples of Christ; The Church of India (formerly known as the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon); The Methodist Church (British and Australian Conferences); The United Church of Northern India. ... The Church of North India is a full member of the World Council of Churches, the Christian Conference of Asia, the Council for World Mission, the Anglican Consultative Council, the World Methodist Council and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
^The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, 1976 Historical Statement, pp 7-11.
Further reading
Badley, Brenton T. The Making of a Bishop: The Life of Bishop Jashwant Chitambar (Lucknow, India: Lucknow Publishing House, 1942).
Hollister, John Norman. The Centenary of the Methodist Church in Southern Asia (Lucknow Publishing House, 1956).
Latourette, Kenneth S. Christianity In A Revolutionary Age A History Of Christianity In The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries Volume III The Nineteenth Century Outside Europe The Americas The Pacific Asia And Africa (1961) pp 400–415. online
Latourette, Kenneth S. Christianity in a Revolutionary Age Vol. 5, The 20th Century outside Europe (1962) pp 299–331.
Locke, Russ M. "A Methodist Family In India: A History Of I. Amar Chitambar and Family." (Doctor of Ministry thesis, Claremont School Of Theology, Proquest Dissertations Publishing, 1978. 781534 online, pp. 40-54 on Jashwant Rao Chitambar.
Moffett, Samuel Hugh. A History of Christianity in Asia, Vol. II, 1500–1900 (2005) . By
Pickett, J. Waskom. The Methodist Church in India. (1939).
Thoburn, James M. The Christian conquest of India (1906) online
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