David Donnan

The Convening General Conference of the Global Methodist Church begins September 20th, 2024 and will run through September 26th, 2024. One of my writing topics has been the future of Methodism. With this historic event happening, here are three outcomes I hope to see happen.

#1 – I Hope Everyone Has Fun

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This first outcome might sound flippant. For far too long, I have known people from all theological sides return from these types of global gatherings who are upset, crestfallen, and disillusioned. They have been upset about politics, attitudes, and outcomes.

Hopefully, there will be more smiles than scowls, more hugs in the hallways than emergency strategy huddles in backrooms, and more laughter and joy than anger and confusion.

There have been many global conferences where pastors get up the next Sunday and have to put lipstick on a pig. We have pretended it was a good idea to kick the can down the road for another four years or explain how a horrible decision really does not affect the local church too much. What if instead it was fun and work was done that we are proud of?

Important work will be done. It will be long days which can lead to exhaustion. My expectation is delegates may return home tired but the good type of tired after a great spiritual retreat.

#2 – I Hope We Build Trust

Tesia Mallory shared on facebook this screen shot from Ryan Burge.

The gist of these stats are they show decline in trust in almost every American institution, including organized religion.

The past few years I have documented my thoughts on how it was trust issues breaking up the former denomination I served in. It will be a mistake if we simply say “trust us, we are the good guys.” We have to continually earn trust. We have to ask again and again, “How can we earn your trust? How can we earn each other’s trust? How can we earn the trust of the people in the pews?”

While not perfect, we are laying a firm foundation of trust. Personally, I have met both our active American Bishops, I shared lunch with Keith Boyette at a conference. I have met with several people in the Transitional Leadership Committee. They are all high caliber people of God who have my trust.

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I pray we continue to build on this and demonstrate this at our convening conference. When in the future we squander this trust we must humbly admit our guilt, clarify how we will correct, and continue to build trust.

If we fail to do this, with no way to keep churches from leaving, the Global Methodist Church will splinter into nothing.

As Tesia summarized on her facebook post, “In a climate of mistrust relationships are important. Build something. Contribute to the common good. Serve.”

#3 – I Hope We Honor God

My greatest hope is that we honor God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I hope this conference pleases God in everything we do. Here is a list of ways I hope we do this.

• I hope we leave the venue and hotels better than we found them. 
• I hope San Jose is blessed by the way we contribute to the economy but even more the way we appreciate their culture. 
• I hope the worship moves us to tears and glorifies the Lord. 
• I hope the fire of the Holy Spirit gets spiritual gasoline dumped over it so we continue to do amazing things for Jesus in the world.

Finally, I hope we make disciples of Jesus Christ who worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly.

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