African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is a Christian Church in the Methodist tradition, whose members are predominantly African American.
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is not to be confused with the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Church History
So these preachers taught an old barn with pulpit and benches as a meeting room and kept there from Sunday afternoon between the official church of the Methodist Church and on Wednesday and Friday evening prayer meetings, which were conducted by lay preachers, and members also teaching. 1799 determined the preachers, together with respected blacks of New York, to form their own religious community under the direction of the Episcopal Methodist Church. 1801, the African Methodist Episcopal Church was formally established after the Confessions and the Constitution of the Episcopal Methodist Church in communion with this and under the guidance of their bishops. The new church but should only belong to "Coloured " as members. After the name of their church building, the church also Zion Church was called. This church was still served by white clergy, as the African-Americans were only a lay preacher.
Since 1820 in the white Episcopal Methodist Church came to a split due to administrative issues, in which also the Zion Church supervising clergy from the Episcopal Methodist Church leaked, the Zion Church decided that stood suddenly without a priest, to form an independent church. It was drawn up a constitution, which closely follow the leaning to the Episcopal Methodist Church.
In 1821 it came to a provisional annual conference ( Methodist Diocese ), who presided James Varick. Varick was ordained in 1822 with two other elders ( pastors ), not by a bishop but by a priest, but this was justified biblically. Then, the conditions for an ordinary annual conference were met, also met and Varick elected superintendent.
The church grew rapidly, first in the North: 1832 Annual Conference of Philadelphia was founded in 1845 New England, 1849 Allegheny, 1851 by Genesee. Until the Civil War, the church grew rapidly in the northern United States. Communities and individual members were involved in this time of the anti- slavery escape aid organization Underground Railroad. Thus, the former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass was a lay preacher in the AME Zion Church of New York, the communities along the Mason - Dixon line presented important contact points for escaped slaves represent the church in Jamestown (New York) enabled many Fugitives successfully escape across Lake Erie to Canada.
During the Reconstruction ( after the Civil War ), the church expanded particularly strong in the South with annual conferences in North Carolina in 1863, Louisiana in 1865, Kentucky in 1866, Alabama in 1867, Virginia in 1868, South Carolina and Florida 1869. The majority of this growth was achieved by crossings of liberated slaves from the Episcopal Methodist Church, South, which then a predominantly white church. In the West, the church was first trailer that made an annual conference in California. Thus, the church grew from 4,600 members in 1856 to 250,000 members in 1871.
The AME Zion Church was one of the first churches in the U.S., which allowed women to the rectory after it had come since 1880 to various ordinations of women, ended a controversy within the church from 1898 to 1900 with the decision that women and men in church life completely are equal.
Church structure
The General Conference is the highest decision-making body in the church. Between meetings of the Conference, the church is led by the Board of Bishops.
Presence
The church is represented in all States of the USA and has worldwide around 1.2 million church members in more than 6,000 communities, including around 85,000 in Ghana. The church administration is in Charlotte (North Carolina). The presiding bishop is George Walker.
The church is very similar in doctrine and church life also the black Methodist churches African Methodist Episcopal Church and Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
The AME Zion Church is a member of the World Methodist Council and the World Council of Churches. Table fellowship is with the churches of Churches Uniting in Christ.