With the steady increase of Europeans, a stronger emphasis was placed on the work among them. By the late nineteenth century the Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, Free Methodists, and Bible Christians (all to be joined in 1913 to form the Methodist Church of New Zealand) were meeting in almost 1,000 churches, halls, and houses, and there were over 100,000 people attending the services.

Gradually the ties which bound the mission to British Methodism were severed. In 1854 South Seas Methodism, once part of the Overseas Missions enterprise of the Mother Church, was granted separate status, though it was still “affiliated” with her. In 1874 the first separate Methodist Conference was held in New Zealand, though every three years until 1913 New Zealand Methodism shared in the “General Conference” of Australasian Methodism, of which it was until that year an integral part. Since 1913 New Zealand Methodism has been a self-governing church. Its people represent about 7½ per cent of the population; there were 174,026 Methodists according to the 1961 census, while there are, in June 1963, 32,073 church members, 449 churches and 258 other preaching places, 269 ministers, 20 home missionaries, 24 deaconesses, and 697 lay preachers.