Doctrines and Discipline of the Free Methodist Church of North America - 1939 Edition

CHAPTER VII

SOUTH AFRICA MISSION CONFERENCE

I. Membership

     ¶ 134. There shall be the following classes of members:

     1. All missionaries who hold credentials from the Commission on Missions.

     2. Native preachers who are ordained or who have been in the regular ministerial work for at least four consecutive years and have passed the course of study prescribed by the conference may ha received by vote into the conference as members in full.

     3. Each circuit or station shall be entitled to one lay delegate and whenever a circuit is not supplied with a native preacher, who is a member of the conference, his circuit meeting may also elect one evangelist or local preacher who is a resident on such charge to act as a member.

II. Native Self-Support

     ¶ 135. It is the desire of the church in America that the native church should rapidly become self supporting in order that the church in America may do for other needy peoples what it has done for this country. It may, therefore, be expected that the home church will gradually withdraw its support and the native church must prepare to carry forward the work begun. The church in America will provide for the missionaries and the church in Africa must learn to provide for its preachers and also to pay all incidental expenses including the erection of its own church buildings. The conference shall have full authority to raise money for the development of the work within its bounds.

III. Prerogatives Restricted

     ¶ 136. 1. This conference may elect one missionary who may be in the homeland as a delegate to the General Conference.

     2. The three classes of members above specified shall sit and vote as one body on all matters coming up before the conference, according to the Discipline, with the exception of the reserved subjects which shall be considered in the missionary meeting according to Paragraph 137.

IV. The Mission Meeting

     ¶ 137. 1. The South Africa Conference shall be under the control of the Commission on Missions of the Free Methodist Church of North America.

     2. All missionaries Within the bounds of the conference, who hold credentials from the Commission on Missions and who have been on the field the two years required by the rules shall be members of the Mission Meeting.

     Any missionary, however, who shall have been regularly appointed to the charge of a mission station, or, of a mission school, or who is a member of the annual conference in full relation, before the expiration of the two years above referred to, shall be a member of the mission after having been one year on the field, and after having passed the first-year examination in the study of the language.

     3. The Mission shall consider the following subjects:

     (1) The Mission Meeting shall appoint all missionaries laboring within the bounds of the conference, including those in school, farm and medical work, to their respective fields.

     (2) It shall pass the character of. ministerial or acting missionary members of the ‘conference, and shall investigate any questions or complaints affecting the character of ministerial or acting missionary members of the conference, according to the rules.

     (3) It shall make all requests for appropriations from the Commission on Missions, according to the rules, and, with the approval of the missionary secretary, it shall apply on the field moneys appropriated by the commission.

     3. With the exception of Paragraph 136, these articles may be amended by the Commission on Missions after consultation with the South Africa Conference.

V. The Executive Committee

     ¶ 138. 1. The Executive Committee shall consist of the chairman and secretary of the mission, and one missionary elected by the mission. The chairman and secretary of the mission shall be chairman and secretary, respectively, of the Executive Committee.

     2. The Executive Committee shall have power during the interim of the annual meeting of the mission, to transact any business that would ordinarily come before the Mission. When in the judgment of the majority of the Committee it is deemed advisable, a special meeting of the Mission may be called. Timely notice of such special meeting shall be given and members should endeavor to be present. (See Paragraph 434.)

     ¶ 139. Omitted because of wrong numbering in previous editions.