Igreja Evangélica Metodista Portuguesa Portuguese Evangelical Methodist Church
Started with the witness of two english laymen, Thomas Chegwin in 1854 and James Cassels ten years later. In 1871 with the arrival in Porto of the Rev. Robert Moreton the Methodist Church was organized. The Mirante chapel was the first to be built in Porto in 1877.
Some leaders after Rev. Robert Moreton: - Rev. Alfredo da Silva (Portuguese) - Rev. Albert Aspey (British) - Bishop Ireneu Cunha (Portuguese) - Bishop Sifredo Teixeira (Portuguese)
The Methodist Church was developed mainly in the North of the country having members from all social classes. Were organized primary schools in Porto to help facing the high rate of illiteracy, later solidarity centres were also organized to help families, children, young people and aged people. There were produced various spiritual and intellectual publications and the most important became the Portugal Evangélico newspaper that now is more a magazine and is the oldest portuguese evangelical publication.
In June 1996 was approved by the Conference of the Methodist Church in Great Britain realized in Blackpool the autonomy of the Portuguese Methodist Church that was officially given in October 26th 1996 in Porto. With the autonomy the Portuguese Methodist Church started having a Bishop as President.
There are 14 local congregations, 6 located in the north, 6 in the center and 2 in the south. The total membership is around 1.000 people and the community served is around 2.000 people. There are 6 full time Ministers, 1 part time, 1 having a secular job, 1 retired Bishop, 1 working also with the Presbiterian Church and 3 cooperating Ministers from the Presbiterian Church. There are 13 Deacons, Deaconesses and Lay preachers mainly involved with the Preaching and leading Services and 2 Deaconesses involved with teaching, archives, solidarity work and women work.
There is the Methodist Women Federation that develops activities that are very good contributions for the Church life and also are very good support for the women and for the solidarity centres. There is the Youth Department that also develops activities to help the young people to be involved in the Church life. The local Sunday schools are also activities we very much appreciate for the very good contribution to the Church life.
There are 2 solidarity centres in 3 different places, Valdozende, Braga and Aveiro. The activities are to support the families, the children, the aged people. There is the John Wesley conference centre in Braga that can accommodates also students or other people in need. There is a permanent ecumenical cooperation and involvement. We are members of the Portuguese Council of Churches that actually is presided by our Bishop. There is a dialogue and some experiences with the Presbyterian Church to find a way of sharing our faith in Jesus in unity.
Internationally we are members of the: - European Methodist Council - European Methodist Youth Council - World Methodist Council - Conference European of Churches - Conference of European Protestant Churches in Latin Countries. - The Leuenberg Communion. Community of Protestant Churches.
The Church main goal is to continue Sharing Jesus in words and actions. For that we continue praying to be blessed in a way that we may have the financial support for the activities, to start new mission places, to pay the Ministers salaries, the expenses of the new candidates (when having them) to the ministries in need such as pastoral ministry, children ministry, young people ministry and music ministry.
The Church hopes to have new solidarity premises in Valdozende, where we can loose what we have been doing there in caring about children, young and old people and families.
The Church hopes to have solidarity premises in Porto, to support mainly children, young people, old age people and families.
The Church hopes to have church and solidarity premises in Lisbon, to support the mainly african local congregation there with their children, young people, old age people and families.
The Portuguese Methodist Church has many dreams and challenges. The preaching of the good news is always taking us to the action in favor of those in need. The lay people are very much important in all that we do as Church. We are a very minority Church in a very Roman Catholic country. We are facing financial difficulties and we thank very much all those that have been supporting us. We will continue believing that God will continue blessing us in a way that everything we will do will glorify his name.