A Move of God in Costa Rica: On the Global Methodist Church’s Convening Conference [Firebrand Big Read]
Photo by Matt Reynolds
The Convening Conference of the Global Methodist Church opened with the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed by a ten-year-old girl. It was a fitting beginning to our gathering in Costa Rica. We were there to plant seeds that will grow well beyond our lifetimes.
As we began to sing I felt myself overcome with emotion. So much work and sacrifice had led up to that very moment. At times I’d wondered whether we’d really get there. I looked around and wanted to remember everything. I thought of my friend Billy Abraham and how much of the groundwork he had laid for that moment he did not live to see. He was watching, however, from among the great cloud of witnesses, and I believe he was overjoyed.
We accomplished a great deal during this week. We established the frame of a house that future generations will continue to build. We did have our challenges. Electronic voting was at times an exercise in frustration, but when has it been otherwise? (The grass withers and the flower fades, but online-voting malfunctions endure forever.) Despite the valiant efforts of the conference planning team, some of our international delegates couldn’t attend in person due to visa issues, so we made accommodations for them to participate via Zoom. It wasn’t ideal, but it allowed contributions and votes we would have missed otherwise. All in all, however, our time together was productive and uplifting. In what follows I’ll discuss a few of the more significant moments of our gathering.
Some Key Legislative Decisions
The Constitution
One of our main accomplishments was the establishment of a constitution for the church. The Constitution Legislative Committee, chaired by Ryan Barnett, had its hands full but completed its work in good order. When the body adopted the constitution in the plenary session, Bishop Webb asked us to consider the gravity of that moment. Indeed, it was significant. We had established those standards, principles, and rules most central to the ordering of our ecclesiastical life. Our doctrinal standards include our Wesleyan/Pietist standards of the Articles of Religion, Confession of Faith, Wesley’s Standard Sermons, and his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament. We also added the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Definition of Chalcedon as doctrinal standards. In so doing, we anchored our church in the Great Tradition of Christian faith, the faith that has been confessed “everywhere, always, and by all,” in the words of Vincent of Lerins. We are catholic Christians of a Methodist extraction. This may be Abraham’s most significant contribution to the denomination he did not live to see birthed.
Under normal circumstances, changes to the constitution would require a two-thirds majority vote, except for those parts protected by restrictive rules, which would require a three-fourths majority. The wisdom of the group, however, was not to lock down the constitution with these protections until we have the opportunity to refine it during the 2026 General Conference. Through that conference, changes will require a simple majority. We authorized a commission to combine the Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith and propose a new doctrinal standard in 2026. We also authorized a commission to bring back a revised version of the General Rules. The work of both committees must be adopted by the General Conference before going into effect.
Theological Education
The Committee on Ministry and the Local Church, chaired by Leslie Tomlinson, established educational requirements for clergy. We affirmed that “those wishing to serve God’s people through ordination within the Global Methodist Church should pursue the highest level of learning and preparation possible.” For elders in the U.S., that is the Master of Divinity degree, though other master’s degrees may also suffice. Elsewhere in the world the expectation may be either a master’s degree or bachelor’s degree. We also added this qualification: “In addition, individuals whose setting, age, or life circumstances make such formal academic degree programs difficult or impractical may, with a secondary diploma, complete a non-degree certificate of pastoral studies from an educational program or programs approved by the Commission on Ministry, requiring the completion of at least the core classes outlined below.” The GMC is not currently using the standard Methodist language of “Course of Study” for non-degree education for ministry, though the reason escapes me. Rather, we refer to these as “alternative educational pathways.”
We also established a Commission on Approval responsible for assembling a list of approved educational institutions for ministerial theological education. Because there was some concern about this motion, it came off the consent calendar. I spoke in favor of it because I am concerned that we avoid outsourcing our education to non-Methodist programs. Many institutions approved in my former denomination had only a nominally Methodist presence. If our clergy are not educated in contexts where they can be formed deeply in the Methodist tradition, we can’t expect them to be Methodist in belief or practice when they come out. Seminaries in the Wesleyan-Methodist tradition like United, Asbury, and Wesley Biblical are examples of specifically Methodist institutions. Truett’s Wesley House, where they have invested significantly to develop the resources for formative training in the Wesleyan tradition, provides another model that educational institutions may wish to adopt.
Bishops
I served on the legislative committee in which there was probably the most disagreement going into the conference: the Episcopacy and Superintendency Legislative Committee, chaired by Jordan McFall. Many Global Methodists are understandably skittish about bishops. The committee work was intense. We sliced, diced, and smithed words. Though we had two well-developed plans in hand, we began work at 8:30 a.m. and did not adjourn until almost 9:30 p.m. What follows might be a bit “insider baseball,” but I want to describe the care with which we went about this work.
The committee considered two models: the General Episcopacy Plan, developed by the Transitional Leadership Council, and the Hybrid Plan, developed by members of the Florida Conference delegation. We met in two subcommittees, each charged with refining one of the plans. Then we came back together as a whole. After lengthy discussion and debate, the committee chose by a large majority to move forward with the General Episcopacy plan. Jay Therrell, who had been the primary spokesperson for the Hybrid Plan, stated graciously that, in the interest of unity, the drafters of that plan would not bring it forward as a minority report.
The General Episcopacy plan then went through a rigorous process of further refinement. One element of this proposal was the selection of two-year bishops to guide us until we could elect bishops to six-year terms in 2026. The Transitional Leadership Council had put forward a slate of candidates, which the committee voted to eliminate in favor of taking one nominee from each delegation. This created problems, however, because we have Global Methodists in Nigeria who came on board too late to send a delegation. They would therefore be unrepresented. It also meant that the process under which annual conferences had operated in good faith to nominate candidates was no longer valid. A motion came forward in the plenary, then, to restore the slate put forward by the Transitional Leadership Council with the possibility of further nominations from the floor. We limited the number of two-year bishops who could be re-elected in 2026 to 50%, and we established a 75% threshold for their re-election. The reason is that we did not want the two-year episcopacy to be an inside track to a six-year term. This motion passed after some debate.
The Mission Statement
The final legislative item of conference business was a proposal to adopt a new mission statement. Up to this point, our mission had been “to make disciples of Jesus Christ who worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly.” Earlier in the year I wrote a piece expressing my desire that we change the mission statement. My primary reason was to link the mission of the Global Methodist Church to historic Methodism. I later submitted legislation to this effect, incorporating suggestions from Paul Lawler and Jason Vickers. The proposed language read, “Led by the Holy Spirit, the Global Methodist Church exists to make disciples of Jesus Christ and spread scriptural holiness across the globe.”
Earlier in the week I was deflated after learning that the proposal had failed by one vote in its legislative committee after considerable debate. Later, however, that committee reconsidered the motion and it passed in an amended form. This amended version included the language of the old mission statement of worshiping passionately, loving extravagantly, and witnessing boldly. Many felt this version was too wordy but didn’t want to let go of the old mission statement entirely. It was unclear how we would move forward. As we worked our way through various business items on the last day of the conference, I became a bit nervous. We were running out of time. As the clock ticked down, I began to sweat bullets. Our mission is a crucial matter. I believed that without a mission linking the church to Wesley’s Methodism, within a generation we would be no more Methodist than the average Bible church (that is, not Methodist at all). The way forward was unclear. It could require considerable debate. Would we be able to reach agreement on the mission statement before our time expired?
It was Paul Lawler who saved the day by proposing an inspired solution. We would make the mission statement: “The Global Methodist Church exists to make disciples of Jesus Christ and spread scriptural holiness across the globe.” Then we would use the following as a vision statement: “Through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, the Global Methodist Church envisions multiplying disciples of Jesus Christ throughout the earth who flourish in scriptural holiness as we worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly.” The motion passed overwhelmingly.
At the close of the conference, we consecrated six new bishops: Kimba Evariste of the Democratic Republic of Congo, John Pena Auta of Nigeria, Leah Hidde-Gregory of Mid Texas, Kenneth Levingston of Trinity, Carolyn Moore of North Georgia, and Jeff Greenway of Allegheny West. The consecration service, written by my colleague Tesia Mallory, was a testimony to the faithfulness of those who had persevered in service to the faith once and for all entrusted to the saints. God was doing something new and beautiful in our midst.
Other Highlights
There were many high points during the conference. Worship was joyful and Spirit-filled. The first Sunday we worshiped together, people came forward to kneel before the cross. Some offered prayers of thanksgiving, others of repentance, still others of supplication for the work before us. We also sang from a new hymnal, O For a Heart to Praise My God, edited by Sterling Allen. Throughout the week the singing and preaching were powerful. Many expressed a palpable sense of God’s presence.
We honored Keith Boyette for his faithful service in launching this new denomination. No one has put his or her shoulder to the wheel with more determination than Keith. He has led with the heart of a pastor and the expertise of an attorney. He has shown calm amid numerous storms. Navigating the requirements to establish churches in multiple countries with various legal provisions has been no cakewalk. It was fitting for us to express our gratitude to Keith on the occasion of his retirement and the launch of this new denomination.
Bishop Luis Palomo of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Costa Rica extended gracious hospitality to us during our time in Costa Rica. Twice we worshiped with friends from this sister denomination, once at a nearby convention center and once at the Colegio Metodista de Costa Rica, a primary and secondary school established in 1921. During the second of these services the Global Methodist Church and the Evangelical Methodist Church of Costa Rica established a covenant agreement.
As legislative committee work continued, other conference guests participated in mission and evangelism opportunities in the San José region. In partnership with the Methodist Church of Costa Rica, dozens worked with local churches and a children’s home. On several occasions, GMC guests and local Costa Rican leaders participated in an evangelism workshop led by Spirit & Truth and then headed out to pray for people and share the Good News of Jesus on the streets of local neighborhoods. Many noted they had not experienced evangelism and mission incorporated into a general conference before. These tangible commitments during a busy convening conference reveal the sort of mission-focused DNA God is birthing in the GMC.
One of the most meaningful parts of the conference for me was getting to know some of the faithful and gifted young leaders coming up in the Global Methodist Church. We will be in good hands with these up-and-coming men and women of faith. I was impressed with their maturity, calm under pressure, and commitment to orthodox Wesleyan faith and practice. God has blessed us with anointed young leaders who will carry the Good News forward with integrity and reach the lost for Christ.
For the Generations to Come
As we closed our time together, I thought about the young lady who kicked off our proceedings by reciting the Apostles’ Creed. She represents generations who are to come, generations who will confess the church’s historic faith, who will encounter the Holy Spirit, who will be changed by God’s grace and know their redeemer lives. My prayer is that a century from now, Global Methodist Churches across the globe, in places unreached by the message of the Gospel today, will continue the work of raising up new generations for Christ. The Methodist tradition is a tradition of hope, even optimism. We have hope in a God who saves, who makes grace available to all people, who forms us by his Holy Spirit into the image of Christ. We hope with great anticipation for the salvation of the lost today and in future generations. We hope in the return of Christ and the full establishment of his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. We are audacious even to hope that God can and will work through imperfect people such as us to form a new body dedicated to making disciples and spreading scriptural holiness across the globe.
David F. Watson is Lead Editor of Firebrand. He serves as Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.