The Methodist Church of Southern Africa

Here’s a fact that might surprise you: one of the most famous students in South African history did his schooling at a Methodist high school.

Nelson Mandela completed his education at Healdtown, a training institution founded by the Methodist Church of Southern Africa in the 1850s, up in the Eastern Cape. Before he was anything else, he was a Methodist school kid.

That’s the kind of influence this church has had for two centuries.

It started with a man who wouldn’t wait for permission. In 1816, a missionary named Rev. Barnabas Shaw arrived at the Cape hoping to preach. The Governor said no. He preached anyway.

He eventually left Cape Town and settled with a group of Namaqua people at Lily Fountain, hundreds of kilometers north, and that stubborn act of obedience became the seed of what’s now one of the largest Christian movements on the African continent.

Six missionary districts became an affiliated conference in 1883 and in 1927, that conference became fully independent. Today, the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA) is organized into 15 districts spanning six countries: South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, and Eswatini.

By most independent counts, the MCSA has around 2.6 million members meeting in approximately 5,000 congregations – which makes it the largest mainline Protestant denomination in South Africa.

The MCSA’s last two Presiding Bishops have both been women. Rev. Purity Malinga became the first woman to hold the role in 2019 and the 100th person to occupy what MCSA calls “Wesley’s Chair.” In 2023, she handed that chair to Rev. Pumla Nzimande, the 101st Presiding Bishop, who leads the connexion today.

The MCSA has been walking through what it calls a Pilgrimage of Renewal, a season of visiting former leaders across the connexion, listening, and re-grounding itself for the future. They have a long history of proclaiming the gospel, developing leaders, serving communities, caring for people experiencing poverty and homelessness, ministering in prisons, responding to HIV/AIDS, and working for justice and transformation. Their ministry today focus on local youth movements to community feeding schemes and peace-building initiatives.

World Methodist Evangelism has a long history of partnership with the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. For many years, Bishop Hamilton Mvumelwamo “Mvume” Dandala was our Regional Secretary for Africa South.

Bishop Dandala was a significant voice during the fight against apartheid in South Africa. As a young pastor he was imprisoned by the government for his leadership in that struggle.

Bishop Dandala went on to be the Presiding Bishop of the MCSA, President of the South Africa Council of Churches and the head of the All Africa Council of Churches.

Under the current leadership of WME Area Ambassador, Rev. Ralph Afghan, WME has continued to collaborate with the MCSA, most recently when they hosted our Metanoia Global gathering for young adults in Cape Town in 2024.