Welcome to Wesley Methodist Church, Amsterdam society. Our society developed through the timely inspiration drawn from Rev.Victor Watson, a British Methodist Minister who was then serving his last year of ministral assignment to the Emmanuel Methodist Church in Amsterdam-West. It was with the said Emmanuel Methodist congregation known to be predominantly Caribbean that few Ghanaian Methodists had made contacts and were worshipping before the mid 1997.
Rev. Victor Watson had perviously served as a missionary to Ghana where he had been greatly inspired by Ghanaian Methodism which is characterized by joyful and exuberant worship expressed in dancing and singing. In spite of these Ghanaian Methodists' presence, Rev.Waston observed that the familiar joyful exuberance which had characterized Ghanaian worship services as he was very familiar with in Ghana was conspicuously absent here coupled with the relatively low membership of Ghanaian Methodists amongst this sole Methodist community in Amsterdam and the Netherlands as a whole. This issue became the topic of discussion after Easter service in 1997 between Rev. Waston and brother Samuel Amankwah and Nana Kawme Arhin who were both visiting the church for the first time. These two brothers eventually became the leading initiators among the founding members of the Amsterdam Wesley Methodist Church.
Having caught the vision for the evangelisation of the Ghanaian community in Amsterdam through the inspiration and fruitful deliberations with Rev. Waston, these two brothers shared the vision with the few Ghanaians already worshipping in the said congregation. These few Ghanaian Methodists were thus motivated to reach out to the Ghanaian community, through telephone calls, word of mouth, periodic local radio announcements inviting people and direction them to the worship place of Emmanuel Methodist Church at the De Kinderstraat 54 in Amsterdam-West. Rev. Waston even offered to join them and once preached on a local radio station. After some months of intensive contacts by these intiators, it was realized that the response to all their efforts was not encouraging, possibly attributed to factors which included lack of proximity of the place of worship to the residential area of the Ghanaian community. In Amsterdam about ninety percent of the Ghanaian community are resident in the Bijlmermeer area of Amsterdam South East where almost all the Ghanaian-initiated churches are also located.
When the initiators finally decided in the beginning of September 1997 to plant a Methodist Church in the catchment area of Bijlmermeer in Amsterdam South East they also took into consideration the language and cultural needs of the Ghanaian community. A local Ghanaian radio station brought the planned service to the attention of a wider public and on 21st September 1997 the first service was held at Kralenbeek 100R in the Bijlmermeer area of Amsterdam South East. The service was conducted by one of their accredited Methodist lay preachers from Ghana. The attendence was 27 adults besides children. A few more local preachers joined the new congregation within three weeks and pledged their commitment to assist in developing this young congregation until it was in a position to receive a resident minister. Further radio announcement and personal contacts continued to draw to the Methodist services increasing number of Ghanaians mostly with Methodist and other Protestant mainline Christian backgrounds, as well as others who were previously non-churched.
A year after establishing the Amsterdam society, there was a felt need to expand the church by starting new congregations in other areas in the Netherland. As a result a new society was established in The Hague in September 1998. Then in Februrary 2001 and in October 2002, two new societies were opened at Rotterdam and in Antwerp-Belgium respectively. A few moths after the formation of the Wesley Methodist Church-Amsterdam, the young congregation decided to own a connection to the Conference of the Methodist Church, Ghana the Mother Church of the Ghanaian membership. In view of this, the two Methodist societies Amsterdam and The Hague were inaugurated as a mission circuit of the Methodist Church, Ghana by the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church, Ghana on 24th June 2000.
In September 2000, Reverend Isaac S. Amoah was formally appointed as the first full-time Superintendent minister of the Holland Mission Circuit comprising Amsterdam and The Hague societies. Wesley Methodist Amsterdam, makes us feel that God's house is a real home. Due to its unique character and tradition the church is filled with warm friendly people dedicated to the service of God. Our church gladly welcomes all those seeking God, Christian fellowship and support in facing life's problems. We have a combination of traditional hymns and contemporary music. The church offers full Bible study classes for both adults and children as well as special fellowships for all.
Brief History
