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.
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