The Free Wesleyan Church (FWC) (Tongan: Siasi Uesiliana Tau‘ataina ‘o Tonga) is the largest Methodist denomination in Tonga. The royal family of the country are prominent members, and the late king was a lay preacher.
It was founded as the Free Church of Tonga in 1885, when King George Tupou I decided that a sovereign nation, in the process of promoting its sovereignty abroad by means of bilateral treaties with Western nations, should have an independent (Wesleyan) Church. Preachers in the FWC system must be ordained ministers, a process that takes between 3 and 5 years, and can involve many stages of approval and apprenticeship. However, ministers are not required to attend theological seminary, because often doing so in the past created a teacher shortage in the church schools while the candidates were attending seminary.
Read more about Free Wesleyan Church: Schools
Famous quotes containing the words free and/or church:
“The bad thing is that thinking about thought doesn’t help at all; one has to have it from nature so that the good ideas appear before us like free children of God calling to us: Here we are.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“The Church welcomes technological progress and receives it with love, for it is an indubitable fact that technological progress comes from God and, therefore, can and must lead to Him.”
—Pius XII [Eugenio Pacelli] (1876–1958)