Coordinates: 54°57′22″N 7°21′18″W / 54.956°N 7.355°W / 54.956; -7.355 Newbuildings Independent Methodist Church is situated on the Duncastle Road in the village of Newbuildings some 5 miles from Derry in Northern Ireland. It was officially opened in 1985 under the ministry of Rev Robert Maxwell. Rev Maxwell began his evangelistic work in the year 1978. He continued to minister to the congregation until 1988 when he accepted the call of Dungannon Independent Methodist Church.
Rev Eric Moore was then installed in Newbuildings. His ministry spanned 15 years when in 2003 he was invited to take up the pastorate in Bangor Independent Methodist Church.
There followed a period of vacancy until 2008 when Rev Jonathan Campbell left Ballysillan Independent Methodist Church to become the congregation's third minister.
In October 2009 Rev Campbell called for Derry's long-standing Hallowe'en celebrations to be banned, telling the BBC the event is "one of the two major days for Satanists" and denouncing it as "evil" and corrupting of families and youth. He set up a petition to deliver to Derry City Council calling for the event to be banned in which he claimed to have "heard reports" that people had sex in the street in previous years and alleged that the event "encourages people to get involved in Satanism and brings a curse upon the city". The petition was sabotaged after the local media reports and the city's mayor, Cllr Paul Fleming, told the BBC that while Campbell was entitled to his "opinion", the event would go ahead.
Newbuildings Independent Methodist Church is affiliated to the Fellowship of Independent Methodist Churches.
Famous quotes containing the words independent, methodist and/or church:
“The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“Kipling, the grandson of a Methodist preacher, reveals the tin-pot evangelist with increasing clarity as youth and its ribaldries pass away and he falls back upon his fundamentals.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
—Bible: New Testament, Ephesians 3:20-21.