Methodism in St. Kitts 1787-2006

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On 18 January 2006, a Welcome Service was held at the Wesley Methodist Chapel in Basseterre, St. Kitts for Ministerial and Lay representatives who had convened to celebrate the Bicentenary of the introduction of the district system into the West Indies.

By happy coincidence, it was also on the 18th day of January in the year of 1787, that Rev. Dr. Thomas Coke, “the Founder of the Methodist Overseas Mission”, accompanied by three other English Missionaries, Revs. Clarke, Hammett and Warrener, first set foot on St Kitts. They were welcomed by a group of Lay persons, including Lydia Seaton, Richard Cable, and William Bertie, who had been praying earnestly for their arrival.

It is very fitting that the bicentenary celebrations should begin in St, Kitts, because it was on this island that the first-ever District meeting in the Caribbean was convened on 15 April 1807. Since then, St. Kitts has maintained an honoured place in the history of Methodism in the Caribbean.

In 1987, Rev. Dr. Hugh Sherlock, the first President of the Conference of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean, and the Americas (M.C. C.A.), recalled, with gratitude to God. “The vision in St. Kitts, which God gave me and used for the founding of our Conference.

Sir Probyn Inniss has tried to tell the story of Methodism in St. Kitts to highlight the special place which it has retained in Caribbean Methodism since Dr. Coke took his leave of “The happy island in which genuine religion flourished like an olive tree in the house of God.

Methodism has had a glorious past. But the future poses challenges. Can the church itself and in the process recapture its ordained Mission and Vision?

The book concludes with a call to individual commitment. “The future of the Church depends on how each one, whether as Leader or Follower responds to the call of God upon our lives.