New Methodist Chairman:Women In Church and Social Outreach

The Gleaner, (Newspaper) - June 13, 1976, Kingston, Jamaica

Breakdown in human relationships is the basis of present dilemma

The Conference of Methodist Churches in the Caribbean the convening in Jamaica May to ratified the designation of the Rev. C. Evans Bailey as Chairman of the Jamaica District. He will assume the post September 1 this year. Rev. Evans Bailey is one of the more loved and respected of the Methodist Ministers here. At present he exercises pastoral care over the Pembroke Hall and Balmagie Methodist Churches. On the last day of the conference he cleared the final hurdle to chairmanship when a 'representative session of 'the conference upheld the designation and ended a process which began in the Methodist Synod of 1975. He succeeds a notable the Rev. Caleb Cousins who served for 5 in that most important post of the Church. REV. EVANS BAILEY talking to Desmond Baptised an Anglican in 192-1. Rev. Bailey is the son of stationmaster of Chapelton, Ciarendon. His family became attached to the Church in Spanish Town in He was educated at the now defunct ,elite St. Simon's College. Teaching him there him- men such as Samuel Carter ,now Archbishop of the Roman Catholic and Bank of Jamaica's Governor G. Arthur Brown. He has as some of his contemporaries Mr. Hector Wynter. Editor of the Gleaner and Mrs. Joyce Robinson director of JAMAL.

From the Registrar General and the Lands Department of the Civil Service he was accepted at Howard University to study medicine. He left for the Methodist Ministry in his great urge to serve the Church and the people in a more personal and lasting way. His theological training came from the Canewood Theological the Handsworth Theological College in Birmingham where he gained the Bachelor of Divinity and the Union Theological Seminary in Colombia New York where he gained the degree of Master of Sacred Theology

The Minister served the Lucea Circuit of the Bensonton and Beechamville Circuit in St. Ann and presently the Lyndhurst Circuit. made significant contribution to the development of the youth movement of the Church. He was District Youth Secretary at a time when the feature of those days was organizing speech contests and and promoting leadership training. In 1965 he was made General secretary of the Church's Christian Education Department and from 1971 to 74 served as executive secretary of the Jamaica Council of Churches. New church He is twice married with 7 children altogether. His wife Barbara is a senior lecturer at the Jamaica School of Agriculture.

In an interview Rev. Mr. Bailey spoke of what he saw as a new Methodist Church in the making. Formerly 75 percent of the Ministers were white foreigners but today they are almost all West Indians with a significant number of Jamaicans serving in other islands. Growth in the Methodist REV. EVANS BAILEY Church was not in terms of increased membership. As in the rest of the world the Methodist Church has seen a decline in membership.

Growth could rather be in the impact on the community in areas of educational social concern and evangelism. There in addition to the York Castle High School ,the Morant Bay High School the acquisition and extension of the Excelsior High School and the present EX ED complex and a proliferation of basic schools attached to Churches across the island Operation Friendship started by the is a leading manifestation of the Church's social he said. Further to that all churches,under his direction , have been advised to take an offering every first Sunday to be used for aiding the poor.

Recently an Advice and Counselling Centre' was launched at the Saxthorpe Church. Rev. Mr. Bailey noted also the growth in the ecumenical the cooperation between churches of different denominations.

Significant to him is his Church's final agreement to accept women into the Ministry of the Church beginning with the historic shattering of Methodist tradition to accept the Rev. Miss Hyacinth Boothe.