ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the ministry of the church as a whole as well as its ordained ministry more from the perspective of church polity than ecciesiology. It aims to identify models, modes, roles, offices and functions heuristically, historically and contextually. The pattern of lay preachers and their ascent up the echelon as exhorters, local preachers and ordained ministers was available, although by the time Methodism came to Singapore the requirements for ordination and conference membership had become more stringent. One conference became many and reached the next stage as the Central Conference in 1950 and finally attained full status as the autonomous Methodist Church in Malaysia and Singapore in 1968. The pattern of an English-speaking base and self-support fitted the situation in Singapore. The decisive factor was a plea from Charles Phillips, a British ex-Wesleyan, at that time a Presbyterian elder in Singapore.
