About Us

However, bigotry and oppressively cruel barriers confronted them. The Spirit of the Lord led them in the establishment of Zion Chapel (which later became The Mother Church of Zion Methodism) where the gospel of His redeeming grace could be experienced. Taking with them the doctrines, discipline and policy of The Methodist Church, they proceeded in the establishment of Zion Methodism. They believed that God had called them to be His people and a channel of His redeeming love for all people. The mission of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is to increase our love for God and to help met the needs of humankind by “Loving God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with our entire mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.” Implicit in this statement is the belief that the church should have a positive relationship to humankind horizontally. We also share in the mission of his son Jesus Christ, in ”healing the sick, helping the blind to receive sight, the lame to walk, the leper to be cleansed, the deaf to hear, the dead to be raised, and the poor to have the good news preached to them. ” – Luke 4:18. We actualize this mission by praising God, by being obedient to the demands of the Gospel, by telling the story of God’s gracious acts in creating and redeeming the world, by inviting persons to commit their lives to Jesus Christ, and by serving as ministers of God’s liberating and reconciling grace. Along with its emphasis on ministry and social change here in the United States, the denomination has focused much of it attention and energies on outreach abroad. To date, the A.M.E Zion Church has member Churches on all continents except Australia. In West Africa, in particular, the denomination has set up numerous schools and clinics throughout Ghana and Nigeria. The Church also has facilities in Liberia, though some of its main structures have been destroyed by civil war. Overseas missions are a crucial component of the A.M.E Zion Church’s outreach, but the denomination believes in charity starting at home. That is why, over the years, several individual churches have implemented programs to help families to find low income housing, jobs, financial planning assistance, health care and day care services. “Our concern is for the whole person,” says Bishop Cecil Bishop, the (retired former) senior bishop of the A.M.E Zion Church. “We have a holistic approach and a holistic gospel. We don’t feel that we live in a kind of compartmentalized sense, but that live is a complete whole. So we have to be concerned about all of those amenities of live that help make up wholeness in an individual.” The outward person is important, but the primary focus of the A.M.E Zion Church remains spirituality and “sharing the good news of the gospel,” says the former senior bishop. As we the A.M.E Zion Church continues to expand and diversify it ministry, we also are preparing to lead an ever increasing youthful church body into the next century. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion uses an episcopal system of governance, which means bishops provide the top leadership. Bishops are directed to provide oversight of the entire church as boards but have specific individual leadership responsibilities in a geographical area, called an episcopal district. An episcopal district is comprised of one or more annual conferences. There are 12 episcopal districts across the world. They provide spiritual leadership to more than 1 million persons in a broad range of settings on five continents, including North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. The Board of Bishops is the executive unit of the connectional church and plays an important leadership role in helping to set the direction of the church and its mission throughout the world. It has the general oversight and promotion of the church during the interim between General Conferences which is held every four years. The Board of Bishops meet semiannually at such time and place as the majority of the board shall determine and also at such other times as may be deemed necessary in the discharging of its responsibility as the executive unit of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.