page_title: United Church in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: United Church in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Bougainvillean female United Church minister 1978
context_page_description: The United Church in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands is United church in Methodist and the Reformed tradition.
  It was formed in 1968 by merging the efforts of the London Missionary Society, the relatively marginal Presbyterian church and the Methodist mission.
  Since 1996, there is a United Church in Papua New Guinea and a separate United Church in Solomon Islands.
context_section_description: The formation of the United Church pre-dates the merger of its corresponding (and one missionary parent though Methodists from New Zealand) denominations in Australia in 1977 in the Uniting Church in Australia but such cross-denominational mergers were common throughout the 20th century, particularly in Commonwealth countries: for example; the United Church of Northern India (1924) (now merged in the later and wider Church of North India, Church of Pakistan, and Church of Bangladesh); the United Church of Canada (1925) and the Church of South India (1947). It is particularly strong on the Papuan coast, the Southern Highlands, eastern Papua, the New Guinea Islands (including Bougainville, also known as the North Solomons), and the Western Solomons. Unlike the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches in Papua New Guinea for reasons of church tradition as well as for Anglicans' cultural attitudes where it is substantial, the United Church welcomes female clergy. Like Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregationalist and United or Uniting churches elsewhere, its services are primarily for worship with scripture lessons, prayers and sermons, communion being once in a month or every few months. As these denominations in western countries have in recent years lost many members and participants to a lack of worship at all in recent decades, the United Church of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands has lost some to more fundamentalist sects.
caption: Female minister of the United Church in a south Bougainvillean village.
exif: {}