About

In 1939, three branches of Methodists (Methodist Episcopal Church, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Methodist Protestant Church), after years of study, planning, and compromise united in Kansas City, Missouri, to become The Methodist Church. Soon after, the Southeastern Jurisdiction was formed of which Alabama-West Florida is still a member. By 1940 the presidents of the women's organizations of the previous stand-alone branches also merged to become the Woman's Society of Christian Service (WSCS). Alabama-West Florida's organizational meeting of the WSCS was held in October of 1940 in Montgomery. Our first annual meeting was held in 1941 in Greenville, AL. The first conference-wide retreat was held. The first School of Missions (now Mission u) was held at Huntingdon College in 1954. In 1967, for the first time in its history of organized missionary work of women, the Alabama-West Florida Conference elected the president of the women's society as a delegate to the General Conference of The Methodist Church held in Dallas, Texas. Much has changed since 1940, but as Ruth Cloyd Robinson, author of A History of the Woman's Society of Christian Service and the Wesleyan Service Guild writes, "Methodist women of the Southeastern Jurisdiction will accept the past as prologue for greater achievements in the years that lie ahead. . . .we are called to heed the compulsive voice of the Master as He says, "Arise, let us be going.'"