EARLY EVANGELISTIC EFFORTS

With their territorial boundaries defined, the Methodists continued to work in earnest, emphazing evangelistic efforts almost exclusively. (This policy was in contrast to its work in other countries, such as Malaya and India, where extensive institutional work was undertaken). The Mission concentrated its efforts on building a solid core of loyal churchmen, from which the Church could increasingly extend outward to the entire territory.

In the 1903 session of the District Conference, the Rev. J. L. McLaughlin reported work in about fifty different places, with forty regularly organized congregations. There were twenty-two chapels that seated from 150 to 1,000 each. Each congregation had one to five exhorters and local preachers, with missionaries visiting the congregations as often as possible. At that time, there were only four missionaries and five paid Filipino workers related to the fifty centers.²⁴

The work spread steadily northward. The Conference Journal of 1904 reports, for example, that Mexico had be- come the center for work in Pampanga. The president of the town and a majority of the city council were Methodists at that time. There were 400 members in the town. In one barrio – Panipuan – all families but one were either Methodist members or adherents.²⁵

The missionary force expanded with the increasing opportunities that presented themselves. Dr. Homer Stuntz, who later became a bishop, came and served as presiding elder of the Mission and as pastor of the American Church for four years, from 1901 until 1905. Formerly a missionary to India, he helped greatly in securing permanent church sites and in bringing in more missionaries. Dr. Marvin Rader came in 1903, serving in Manila, Rizal, Bataan and Zambales. His principal work for many years was serving as the presiding elder of the Manila District. ²⁶ Edwin Housley, Oscar Huddleston and Harry Farmer were among other outstanding leaders. Perhaps the real mainstays of the work, however, both because of the quality of their service and the length of their labors were Dr. and Mrs. E. S. Lyons who pioneered in the Cagayan Valley, the Ilocos provinces and Abra and the Rev. and Mrs. B. O. Peterson, who served in Pangasinan, Tarlac and Pampanga. Both couples stayed nearly forty years, providing great continuity in the work.²⁷

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