Congregational Christian Church in Samoa

The Congregational Christian Church in Samoa or Ekalesia Faapotopotoga Kerisiano Samoa is a Reformed and congregational denomination in Samoa.

History

The Congregational Christian Church in Samoa was started by the London Missionary Society. The arrival of the missionary John Williams played an especially important role in the birth of the denomination, accompanied by missionaries from Tahiti, the Cook Islands and Tonga. Substantial institutions and village churches were established. At Malau and Upolu islands missionaries were trained and sent to Tuvalu, Niue, Kiribati, the New Hebrides now Vanuatu and other Pacific Islands. In 1839, ten years after the arrival of the LMS missionaries, the first Samoan missionaries left the island to do mission in Melanesia. By 1855 the whole Bible was translated into Samoan language. The church grew rapidly. The church adopted its own constitution in 1928. It was called LMS church until 1962, when it took the current name. Till 1980 the church remained intact, when the Congregational Christian Church in American Samoa was separated.^[1]^[2]

Statistics

The church has 70,000 members and 327 congregations and 300 house fellowships in Samoa.^[1] It has congregations in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Savaii, Upolu and Fiji.^[3] The central office located in Tamaligi, Aipa.^[4]

Interchurch organisations

A member of the World Communion of Reformed Churches,^[5] the Pacific Conference of Churches, the World Council of Churches, Council for World Missions.^[2]

External links

Official website

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, July 05, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.