History
The first Methodist presence on the islands was that of Rev. Maj. George C. Stull, a minister from the Montana Annual Conference, which was a part of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He originally went to the Philippines as the chaplain of the First Montana Regiment, and established the first ME church. In the Stull letter—a correspondence sent from Stull to his home conference for the annual conference—Stull enumerates several of his accomplishments since coming to the islands. Among them is the fact that he commissioned the first Filipino to preach using his "elder's privilege in an emergency."
In 1908, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church authorized the organization of the Philippine Islands Mission into the Philippine Islands Annual Conference, under the jurisdiction of the Southern Asia Central Conference.
The work in the Philippines grew quickly and in 1936, the General Conference enabled the organization of the Philippines Central Conference during the following quadrennium. This act was ratified at the 1939 Uniting Conference which created The Methodist Church. The first session of the Philippines Central Conference was held at the Central Methodist Church in Manila, beginning February 29, 1940.
Following years of growth, the 1960 General Conference approved a second episcopal area in the Philippines Central Conference: the Baguio Area (composed of the Northwest Philippines Annual Conference, the Northern Philippines Annual Conference, and the Mindanao Provisional Annual Conference) which joined the Manila Area (composed of the Philippines Annual Conference, Southwest Philippines Provisional Annual Conference, and the Middle Philippines Annual Conference). The 1984 General Conference mandated the addition of a third episcopal area, the Davao Area.
Read more about this topic: Philippines Central Conference (United Methodist Church)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)