TheMethodist Church of New Zealand (Māori:Te Hāhi Weteriana o Aotearoa) is aMethodist denomination headquartered inChristchurch,New Zealand. It is a member of theWorld Methodist Council.[1]
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TheMethodist movement was started byJohn Wesley, an 18th-centuryChurch of Englandminister. Methodistmissionaries were among the earliest Europeans to come to New Zealand. MissionariesSamuel Leigh and William White established the firstWesleyan mission, Wesleydale atKaeo on theWhangaroa Harbour, on 6 June 1823. Leigh worked alongside Anglican missionarySamuel Marsden.[2]
The Methodist missions in New Zealand and Australia became administratively independent from Britain in 1874. The Annual Conference has always been the governing body of the Methodist Church of New Zealand.[3] The New Zealand Church was originally a part of theMethodist Church of Australasia, with the New Zealand annual conference reporting to a triennial Australasian conference. In 1910 the Methodist Church of New Zealand completely separated from Australia.[4]
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 thetemperance movement. Methodist youth were encouraged to join theBand of Hope. Methodist ministerLeonard Isitt became a full-time temperance campaigner and was elected as a member of parliament.[4] Writer and social reformerPercy Paris became president of the Conference in 1938.[5]
Since the early 1900s the proportion of New Zealanders who are Methodist has declined from 10% to a reported 2.6% in the2013 census.[6] At the 1983 conference the church made a conscious decision to work towards inclusion of all ethnicities and cultures.[7] The denomination is supportive ofwomen ministers and clergy in same-sex relationships.[8] In 1999 the conference decided to allow ministers tobless same-sex relationships.[9] In 2013, whensame-sex marriage waslegalised in New Zealand congregations that opted to do so were able toperform same-sex marriage ceremonies.[10]
TheWorld Methodist Council website reports 9,473 Methodist Church members who worship as part of a Methodist Churchparish; additionally, a "significant number" of Methodist members worship in churches co-operating with Anglicans and Presbyterians. This membership figure is undated.[11]
The Methodist Church of New Zealand is a member of theWorld Council of Churches[12] and theChristian Conference of Asia.[7] Since 2016 the church has participated in an ecumenical platform,National Dialogue for Christian Unity (NDCU), along withAnglicans andRoman Catholics.[13]