Methodist Church Ghana

The Church ⇒ About Us

Ghana is an independent Republic State . It was formerly the Gold Coast Colony which achieved independence from the British on March 6 th, 1957 . On 1 st July 1960 , it became a republic.

Ghana is administratively divided into:

10 Regions
138 Districts
238 constituencies

Ghana geographically covers an area of 238, 538 square kilometres (92, 100 square miles). The distances from North to South is 672 kilometres while from East to West is 536 kilometres.

Ghana has a population of about 18 million and the official language is English. There are 9 major language groups, these are Akans, Ewes, Gas, Adangbes, Gonjas, Kassena-Nankanis, Builsas, Walas, Dagartis and Sissalas.

The country is predominantly agricultural with cocoa as the major economic crop and the largest foreign exchange earner. Other agricultural products include coconut, coffee, colanuts, rubber and subsistence crops, such as maize, rice, millet, cassava, yam, plantain, banana etc. Natural resources include gold, timber, diamond, bauxite, manganese, fish, etc. Agriculture, including forestry and fishing takes 60% of the work force while industry and commerce take 10% of the population. The main industries are mining, timber, light manufacturing, fishing and aluminium smelting.

The Conference of The Methodist Church Ghana came into being in July 1961. It had been an Overseas District of British Methodism so it adopted the British Methodism leadership of Presidency and Secretary of Conference. The Pioneer Methodist Missionary, Joseph Dunewell, landed at Cape Coast on January 1, 1835 , and began work among the Mfantse-speaking peoples of the Coast, some of whom were already

Christians. In the first eight years of the Church’s life, 11 out of 21 missionaries who worked in the Gold Coast died. Thomas Birch Freeman, who arrived at the Gold Coast in 1838 was the great pioneer of missionary expansion. Between 1838 and 1857 he carried Methodism from the Mfantse coastland to Badagry and Abeokuta in Nigeria , and to Kumasi in the Asante hinterland of the Gold Coast. He died in Accra in 1890. Methodist evangelisation of Northern Ghana began in 1910. After a long period of conflict with the Colonial Government, missionary work was finally established in 1955, the late Rev. Paul Adu being the first indigenous missionary to Northern Ghana . Thirty-six years later, on November 10, 1991 , the Northern Ghana District, now a Diocese, was inaugurated at Tamale. Missionary work there includes agriculture and rural health services made possible by mobile clinic units.