In care for our community during the COVID-19 pandemic, we Ghana Wesley Methodist Church of Southern California Weekly Worship will not be held on site through April 2020. Follow GWMC SoCal on Facebook for updates!
A weekly gathering of the Ghana Wesley Methodist Fellowship of Southern California. Pastor Victor leads the service of Holy Communion every First Sunday.
A Brief History of The Methodist Church Ghana
The Rev. Joseph Rhodes Dunwell was the pioneer Wesleyan Methodist Missionary to work in the Gold Coast now known as Ghana. He arrived in the country on 1st January 1835. Before him, a number of missionaries of other denominations – Anglican, Dutch Reformed Church, French and Portuguese Catholic priests, and Presbyterians had worked in the Gold Coast with similar intentions of propagating the Gospel resulting in the creation of pockets of Christian communities prior to 1835. The Methodists tapped into the foundation laid by preceding missions for expansion. However, missionary outreach in the Gold Coast was in many ways the success story of indigenous African zeal. From 1835 until 1960 the Gold Coast Church and subsequently Ghana Church formed part of the British Conference under the Methodist Missionary Society and grew to be a District of the British Conference.
As the early Methodist missionaries evangelized through the country, it was clear that the concept of God was not foreign to the African, for, according to Nana Mensah Bonsu an Ashanti King, his people knew God before the advent of the missionary into their kingdom. Initially this view led to a serious challenge to the growth of Christianity and Methodism in Ghana. To propagate the gospel and Methodism is Ghana, the Methodists established schools to train indigenes. They established the Wesleyan High School, later known as Mfantsipim School in 1876. “The aim for Mfantsipim School was to help the African continent turn out graduates who would be able to hold their own in future. It was to raise up a generation of men who would be brave enough to face the problems of their own continent, practically and unselfishly”. A prominent alumnus of the school is the late Mr. Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General.
The British Methodist church deemed it greatly important to place the superintendency of the
circuits under the charge of African ministers. In 1949, the Rev. Gaddiel R. Acquaah was appointed the first African Chairman of the Ghana District of the British Methodist conference. This was an appointment viewed as an important landmark in the Africanisation of the leadership of the Methodist Church prior to the attainment of autonomy. The Rev. Acquaah was instrumental in the translation of the bible and many of the Methodist hymns into the mother tongue. The church attained autonomy in 1961 and became a full Conference under the Rev. Dr. F. C. F. Grant as the first President. In 1999 the Ghana Methodist church accepted and adopted the Episcopal System of Church Leadership with tenure of Office.
In 2017, by the grace of God, a few members of the Methodist Church, organized themselves into a modest group with the aim of worshipping God through the Wesleyan tradition here in Southern California. The Ghanaian Fellowship is made up of decent Christians from Ghana (Africa) who wish to continue their service in worship to God while on a sojourn to this part of the world and at the same time not losing their preferred way of worship – the Methodist Tradition. We rejoice that Pastor V. Cyrus-Franklyn (a seminary school-mate of one of our members of the Ghanaian Methodist Fellowship, Bro. Newlove Annan) his wife Rev. Neema Cyrus-Franklin and the entire Inglewood First United Methodist Church have been extremely hospitable, incredibly generous and very supportive of the Ghana Wesley Methodist Church of Southern California. We owe you a depth of gratitude.
God Bless You!