Discover the Journey of Our Church

The Chinese Methodist Church in Australia is very unlike any other Methodist Church in modern times. Usually, a Methodist Church in any country other than Great Britain is established by a clear missionary effort from a sponsoring Conference. All the Methodist Conferences in America, Europe, Africa and Asia were given life this way, as can be seen from their respective Historical Statements. So was the former Methodist Church of Australasia, now one of the component parties of the Uniting Church. For Methodist churches originating this way, their Methodist character was stamped on them from the very beginning.

In the case of the Methodist Church in Australia, however, its earliest Local Churches were formed as independent local churches. The earliest among them was the Kew Chinese Christian Church, founded by Rev. James Ha in 1986 (later registered as Chinese Methodist Church In Australia, Melbourne in 1991). Rev. Ha, being given recognition as a missionary of the Sarawak Chinese Annual Conference, began to plant Brisbane Chinese Methodist Church in 1989 (the current Eight Mile Plains Methodist Church), and more preaching centres in New South Wales and South Australia followed.

While this was taking place, a Methodist local church was established by Rev. Joel Siaw from the Sarawak Chinese Annual Conference in Western Australia. These local churches then came together to form the Mission Conference of the Methodist Church in Australia in 1994 with its “Constitution” adapted from the Book of Discipline of the Methodist Church in Malaysia, the Provisional Annual Conference of the Methodist Church in Australia was constituted in 1998, finally the Annual Conference of the Chinese Methodist Church in Australia in 2002.