Free Methodist Church

In 1860, a pastor named B. T. Roberts in upstate New York got kicked out of his church.

His crime? He kept insisting that the poor shouldn’t have to pay for a pew. That women should be allowed to preach. That slavery had no place in the church. And that the Holy Spirit should be what moves in a worship service.

So Roberts and a small group of Methodists who’d been pushed to the margins did something bold. They started their own church. They called it the Free Methodist Church – free from pew rents, free from human bondage, and free to worship without constraint.

That was 166 years ago. Today, that same conviction is still spreading, and in places far beyond where it started.

Across the world, the Free Methodist Church now encompasses over 1.5 million members worshipping in more than 10,000 congregations across 60+ countries. What started as a modest group in North America is now an exploding global movement. In fact, for every four Free Methodists in the United States, there are 96 in the rest of the world!

From child-care ministries in the developing world to a “Set Free” movement fighting human trafficking one neighborhood at a time, the Free Methodist family continues to demonstrate that true Wesleyan holiness moves outward in tangible love.

We are grateful for the close relationship World Methodist Evangelism has with the Free Methodist Church, specially for our very own Director of Ministries, Luiz Cardoso, who is a church planter with the Free Methodist Church in the UK; and our board member Rev. Dr. Jim Ellison, who is a Free Methodist Church pastor in Georgia (United States).

A Prayer for the Free Methodist Church

Lord, we thank You for the Free Methodist Church, for a movement born out of conviction that every person deserves a seat, a voice, and a place in Your church. We pray for every bishop, pastor, missionary, and local leader stewarding this global family. Multiply their reach. Grant them deep wisdom, spiritual resilience, and fresh vision as they proclaim the Good News. Protect their unity across languages and continents. Fill their pulpits and their pews with the same Spirit-fueled courage that started this whole movement in 1860. Where they plant, let it grow. Where they serve the poor and the trafficked and the forgotten, let them see Your Kingdom come. In Jesus’ name, amen.