Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas

The Caribbean is known around the world for its beauty. But long before many of its islands became destinations for travelers, something else was taking root there: a movement of people determined to share the good news of Jesus Christ. And remarkably, part of that story began with a pamphlet.

In the late 1750s, an Antiguan lawyer named Nathaniel Gilbert read An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, written by John Wesley. The words changed him. Gilbert eventually traveled to England to meet Wesley. He brought three enslaved members of his household along for the journey: Mary, Sophia, and Bessie. While in London, Gilbert wandered into a meeting where John Wesley was preaching and he was undone. So were the three people traveling with him. Wesley recorded in his journal that November that he’d baptized two of the women, writing that one was “deeply convinced of sin” and the other was “rejoicing in God her Saviour.”

Gilbert embraced the Methodist faith, and returned home with a new conviction to share it with others. Preaching from the back steps of his own house to the enslaved men and women who worked his land, he made Antigua the first place outside Great Britain to hear the Methodist message at all.

What began as one person’s encounter with the message of grace grew. Gilbert built a community of more than 200 believers before he died. When Gilbert passed away, others carried the work forward. Mary, Sophia, and Bessie didn’t let the fire go out. They ran a school, raised funds, cleared land and hauled the materials that became the first Methodist chapel in St. John’s, Antigua. Three enslaved women, with no title and no authority the world of 1760 would have recognized, kept a movement alive.

That movement is still alive today. It’s called the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas (MCCA).

Through preaching, prayer, class meetings, lay leadership, mission, and extraordinary perseverance, Methodism spread across the Caribbean and the Americas. The MCCA became an autonomous Methodist body in 1967 and now connects Methodists across eight districts: Belize/Honduras, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, the Leeward Islands, Panama/Costa Rica, South Caribbean, and the Bahamas/Turks and Caicos region. Its ministry stretches across a remarkable diversity of cultures, languages, communities (and more than a dozen different currencies!). Officially, the connection counts 62K+ members and 600+ congregations and their motto, drawn from 2 Corinthians 5:14, says: “The Love of Christ Constrains Us.” 

World Methodist Evangelism continues to have a strong relationship with the MCCA. Rev. Dr. George Mulrain from Jamaica served for many years as our Regional Secretary and currently Bishop Everald Galbraith, also of Jamaica, serves as the WME Ambassador for the Caribbean. In 2016, WME was honored to provide evangelism training for the MCCA in Kingston, Jamaica. We’re grateful that other Wesleyan Methodists in the Caribbean, along with the Salvation Army, were able to join us as well.