Mission to Australia and New Zealand

In 1842 the prospect of sending Primitive Methodist missionaries to Australia and New Zealand from England, seemed impossible. How could a movement of poor, working class people raise the considerable sum of money needed?

Then, someone had an inspirational thought: ask 70,000 Sunday school children to fund missionaries to Australia, at one penny each for a year.

This idea led to the means of a funding a mission to New Zealand. A missionary meeting at Cramlington in the North Shields Circuit suggested that the Sunday School teachers take responsibility for sending a missionary to New Zealand. The idea was taken up with enthusiasm.

“We approve of the suggestion concerning each Sunday school teacher raising the sum of one shilling, during the ensuing year, to aid in missionary labours in New Zealand.”

In August 1844, Robert Ward and his family landed at New Plymouth. He arrived as “a stranger amongst strangers uninvited and unexpected”. Six weeks later Joseph Long and John Wilson arrived in Adelaide as the first missionaries to Australia.

How the Primitive Methodists got their name

Thursday February 13th 1812

We called a meeting and made plans for the next Quarter and made some other regulations ... In particular we took the name of the Society of the Primitive Methodists.

Copy of entry in Hugh Bourne's journal, printed in Origin and History of the Primitive Methodist Church, Vol I, p133.

The name “Primitive Methodist” seems rather quaint to our modern ears. The word “primitive” usually conveys a negative impression – that of being prehistoric, out-of-date or archaic. That is not what is intended. For more details see What’s in a name? Why “Primitive” Methodism?

Richard Dawkins shares the message of the Gospel

That God, the all powerful creator of the universe couldn’t think of a better way to forgive humanity’s sins than to have himself put on earth, tortured and executed in atonement for the sins of humanity? What kind of a horrible, depraved notion is that?

Richard Dawkins

Atheist evangelist Richard Dawkins shares the message of Easter with the Australian people via the Q&A program. Dawkins knows the gospel, but rejects it as “horrible and depraved.” I mean what sort of God would suffer and die for the sins of the world?

From the transcript of the program:

RICHARD DAWKINS: The New Testament – you believe, if you believe in the New Testament, that God, the all powerful creator of the universe couldn’t think of a better way to forgive humanity’s sins than to have himself put on earth, tortured and executed in atonement for the sins of humanity? What kind of a horrible, depraved notion is that?

. . . . That’s why Christ came to earth, in order to atone for humanity’s sins. If it’s extreme, it’s not me that’s being extreme, it’s the new testament that’s being extreme.

TONY JONES: No, well, I’m going to jump in here, because is that not a story of sacrifice and therefore has something admirable attached to it which is the opposite of what you suggested?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Do you think it’s admirable? You think it’s admirable that God actually had himself tortured for the sins of humanity?

TONY JONES: That is the Christian view obviously.

RICHARD DAWKINS: That is the Christian view. If you think that’s admirable, you can keep it.

Out of the mouths of babes and atheists . . .

(This is a re-post of the original on Steve Addison's blog)

Movements that Change the World

"Christianity is a movement of movements", says Steve Addison in his recent book “Movements that Change the World”. Primitive Methodism is an example of one of these movements.

Throughout the ages various moves of God exhibit common characteristics. He identifies these as

1. White-hot faith

2. Commitment to a cause

3. Contagious relationships

4. Rapid mobilization and

5. Adaptive methods

The Primitive Methodist movement fits these five characteristics surprisingly well.

They were men and women of radical, white-hot faith. They were known for their dynamic prayer meetings, zealous preaching and ambitious faith.

They were committed to a cause. Their preachers endured toil and suffering, violence from gangs, hostility by the legal authorities and the religious establishment.

Relationships were nurtured through the weekly class meetings, and house-to-house visiting. Whole families were often transformed by the gospel. As workers saw their fellow workmen experience radical conversion, and villagers saw the most notorious characters in their community change, the network of relationships grew.

Primitive Methodism mobilized rapidly. Lay leadership was a key factor in the expansion of the movement. By using local lay preachers and travelling preachers, this missionary movement touched the whole England. Just forty years after the founding of the movement in 1810, there were half a million people in attendance in their chapels according to the 1851 religious census.

They used adaptive methods. They used open-air preaching and Camp Meetings to great effect. The recognised the value of female preachers. They used missionary language and missionary methods. They had a significant book and magazine publishing organisation. They succeeded in reaching the working classes, a strata of society largely ignored by the established church.

Every man ready for glory

Many Primitive Methodists were mineworkers who bore witness to their faith in the dark and dangerous circumstances of work down the pit. The Seaham Colliery disaster of 8 September 1880 provides a dramatic example.

"164 men and boys perished, many of whom were trapped down the pit and suffered a slow death. When the rescuers finally broke through the blocked shaft they found a poignant message chalked on a wooden plank. It reads as follows: ‘The Lord is with us. We are all ready for heaven. Bless the Lord. We have had a jolly prayer meeting, every man ready for glory. Praise the Lord. Signed Ric. Cole’."

"Richard Cole was a Primitive Methodist local preacher who would often have ministered to his colleagues from the pulpit. Here at the tragic conclusion of his life, and in unimaginable and deeply moving circumstances, he ministered to them for the last time, as a dying man to dying men."

From 'Primitive Methodism', Geoffrey Milburn, page 57, quoting ‘Wesley Historical Society North East Bulletin, 34, page17’

Primitive Methodists at Prayer

William Holt Yates Titcomb (1858-1930)

Primitive Methodists at Prayer, an oil on canvas, was on display in 1889 at the Dudley Museum & Art Gallery. This painting won more international medals than any other St. Ives work and is the first of three paintings that Titcomb completed of the Primitive Methodist congregation of the Fore Street Chapel in St. Ives. Although the son of an Anglican bishop, Titcomb was fascinated with the passion with which the St. Ives fishermen practised their faith - a faith which they called the "brightest and best" part of life. The simplicity of the chapel, the sparseness of the congregation and the humbleness of their attire only serve to highlight the intensity of belief.

The painting shows the interior of the Primitive Methodist chapel on Fore Street, St Ives, where Titcomb lived for part of each year. The occasion depicted appears to be a prayer meeting following a summer evening preaching service. The preacher stands in the high pulpit, and below him is a remnant of the original congregation, including in the foreground some chattering boys and two elderly fishermen dressed in their simple workaday garb, and shown in attitudes of prayer on the plain wooden benches. The picture’s simplicity, naturalness and integrity assured its wide appeal, and the Primitive Methodist Church readily acclaimed it as ‘a nation’s picture’.

Sources

1. http://www.wickersleyweb.co.uk/hist/titcomb.htm

2. http://scotwise.blogspot.com/2005/05/primitive-methodists-by-w-h-y-titcomb.html

3. Primitive Methodism, Geoffrey Milburn, p79

Methodist Covenant Prayer

“I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing; I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours.

So be it. And the covenant made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.”

This is a repost from the armybarmy blog, written by Salvation Army officer Stephen Court. He is married to Danielle Strickland. According to Christianity magazine she spends her days in brothels ministering to prostitutes, or trawling the streets praying with drug addicts. Her uncomfortable but challenging message to the church is that it has abandoned the poor. She is social justice director for the Salvation Army's Southern Territory in Australia.