A Word About General Conference: “What’s Next?”

The long-anticipated and much-prayed over Convening General Conference of the Global Methodist Church is now history. When asked to share my impressions of the week we spent with Global Methodist brothers and sisters from around the world, I respond that it was a Spirit-filled experience of praise, prayer and progress. Our worship of the Lord was joyful, humbling and passionate. An atmosphere of prayer permeated the Conference in the plenary sessions, hallways, committee meetings, small groups, and spontaneously where two or more gathered. This Conference was a witness to our Methodist ideal of ‘holy conferencing,’ listening in order to understand one another and discerning what seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to the body. We praised the Lord, prayed together and made good progress. Thanks be to God!

So, what’s next? On November 1, a part-time bishop will be assigned to our conference with primary responsibilities of preaching and teaching, ordaining elders and deacons, and making appointments in collaboration with me as Conference Superintendent (new title) and our Cabinet. The Annual Conferences across the GMC now have full authority to approve churches and clergy for membership and develop policies in accordance to the Book of Doctrines and Discipline. Believing the local church is the strategic center of mission and ministry, we seek to provide qualified and equipped pastors in every
congregation and plant new communities of faith across our streets and around the MidSouth Conference to reach the least, the lonely and the lost. We partner with other conferences around the globe in mutually beneficial ministries.

Our delegates adopted this Mission Statement: The Global Methodist Church exists to make disciples of Jesus Christ and to spread scriptural holiness across the globe. Being a disciple and making disciples is what I call the “in-between” work in the Kingdom of God. Whatever we do in-between conferences, in-between Sundays, in-between worship services, in-between rising and bedtime is discipleship. It is in the everyday stuff of life that we ‘show and tell’ who we are in Christ and who he desires to be in the lives of the world for whom he laid down his life. So, every morning, may our first prayer as disciples of Jesus not be, “Good Lord, it’s morning!” but “Good morning, Lord. Here I am. What’s next?”

Paul reminded his friends at Philippi that God is very good at what He does: In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:4-6). May that also be a daily encouragement to us that as we praise the Lord, pray together and seek to know and do his will, we will be confident of this, the best is yet to come.