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This team of people are called for such a time as this to help equip all people to find their purpose in serving the Lord
Pastors and Leadership
Our leadership team consists of ordained Free Methodist Elders, conference ministers, and lay leaders who work alongside of our pastors.
We have extensive experience in both local and international missions and local church ministry that seeks to benefit the community around each church.
We look forward to serving and loving those who walk into our doors and to helping those under our leadership to become more like Jesus as we serve in his name to increase the depth of our discipleship.
Main Street Free Methodist Church is part of the North Central Conference of the Free Methodist Church USA, and works cooperatively with the leaders and direction and oversight of the Superintendents and board of elected Bishops.
What is a Free Methodist?
Good question–and it’s one we get asked a lot!
Free Methodists trace their beginning to 1860, when a group of Methodist Episcopal ministers were very concerned over the direction their denomination was taking. It was moving further from the foundational truths of the Bible and quickly becoming a church marked by an “elitism”. For example, if you were rich, you got to rent out whatever pew you wanted, while the poor people had to stand in the back. The worship of the church had also become very ritualistic, lacking freedom and joy, and the church’s official doctrine even condoned slavery!
This group of Godly ministers tried for a couple years to change their church from the inside, promoting new ideas which were not very well received by the church hierarchy, and so, in 1860, the Methodist Episcopal Church officially excommunicated a man named B.T. Roberts and several other ministers who were following his ideas.
So, in the spring of that year, B.T. and the other ministers, along with likeminded lay people, met in both St. Charles, Illinois as well as in Pekin, New York, and officially created the Free Methodist Church.
Since those beginnings, the Free Methodist Church has grown into a worldwide denomination, some 10 million strong. The FM Church of today stands firmly on the truth of God’s Word, and we strive for holiness of life, integrity of character, freedom from sin, justice and help for the poor and disenfranchised, and most of all, the love and grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ! We are evangelical and conservative in our doctrines, and we believe and preach that salvation is through Jesus Christ alone and His shed blood on the Cross.
We believe in both freedom and order in worship, and we preach freedom and love for all who are struggling to live holy lives. We are mission-minded, taking the truth of God wherever He calls us, and supporting the efforts of missionaries worldwide to spread the hope of the Gospel.
The movement of freedom and hope known as the Free Methodist Church which B.T. and the others founded over 165 years ago continues strong today, and here at Main Street Free Methodist Church, and we are proud to be a part of that Godly heritage.
We invite you and your family to come and join us in the mission.