On the 16^th of January 1965, the United Church of Zambia was formed. Four mainline separate missions came into union representing different Christian traditions namely; the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society (PEMS) under the leadership of Francios Coillard, a French Calvinist missionary who arrived in August 1884; The London Missionary Society (LMS), in the northern of Zambia came second just before colonization and after David Livingstone’s death. This missionary society was under the leadership of Mr Stevenson, who established the first mission station at Niamukolo in 1885. After the LMS, came the Primitive Methodists who were later on joined by the Wesleyan Methodists in 1885.  

The Rev H. Buckenham was the founding leader who established a mission station at Nkala-central of Zambia. In 1932, a synod was formed to merge the Primitive and the Wesleyan Methodists in Zambia. The fourth mission to come into the union was the Church of Scotland (the Presbyterians) in the North–Eastern of Zambia in 1885. This mission played a very important role in the evangelization of Malawi and some other parts of Zambia. J. Weller singles out missionaries who played a significant role to establish the first permanent mission in Zambia at Mwenzo, near Tanzania in 1894.