A Firm Foundation: Three Hopes for the Global Methodist Convening Conference 2024
September 18, 2024
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
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.
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.
More From David
Podcast Episode: Why Be South Georgia Global Methodist?
July 17, 2024
For David Donnan Podcast Season 3 Episode 2 we talk with Rev. Allen Cason about why he is a part of the South Georgia Conference Global Methodist Church.
Listen on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Facebook, and Youtube.
Allen’s Podcast Website: https://podechesis.com/
David’s Info
Twitter: https://twitter.com/daviddonnan
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavidDonnanMedia/
Podcast: https://daviddonnan.com/podcast/
Faith, Freedom, and Finance: The GMC’s Pastor Tithing Policy
November 3, 2023
Chris Ritter is a gift to the Wesleyan/Methodist movement. His articles and time as a delegate have greatly served the Kingdom of God. He is a bright, intelligent, and spiritual leader. Personally, he has been very generous towards me with direct messages on social media over the years and even a recent phone call to discuss Global Methodism.
This is why it pains me to challenge a recent article he wrote. Although I take solace in challenging the idea, not the person.
Chris has an excellent blog called People Need Jesus. I highly recommend it. He recently wrote an article titled The Way to San Jose: Funding the Movement. This article discussed requiring clergy to move their tithe (or at least part of it) from the local church to the denomination.
Funding ministry will be a vital component of the future of Methodism. Dictating for preachers to move their funds from the local church is a dangerous idea with potential to cause a mass exodus from the growing Global Methodist Church (GMC).
Here are three reasons why this idea should go no further.
#1 Governing additional aspects of local church affairs runs against the spirit of the GMC.
We all have some level of trauma we have brought into our new denomination from our previous. Everyone is cautious about administrative overreach. As I have gone out to share with churches about the future of Methodism, I frequently remind them: the days of the Holy Spirit blowing from top down only are over. To paraphrase John 3:8, “the Spirit blows where it wants to.”
Pastors should have the freedom to send their tithe where they feel led by God to send it. Churches and pastors should enjoy more autonomy on an issue like this, not less. We should also be weary of creating policies where there is no will or need for one.
#2 This will cause small churches to leave the GMC.
All churches have the ability to leave the GMC. This has been one of the strong selling points for churches joining. The threat of a large back door should make us all consider the reality of each decision. If a church decides to leave, we should thank them and celebrate them on their new journey. However, we do not want to create issues to make churches feel they need to leave.
In many small churches I have served I have been one of the top givers. Our family has consistently tithed ten percent at each church.
Do we think any church would sacrifice one of their top ten givers to join any denomination? If not, do we think this will make them want to stay in any denomination?
#3 More funds are raised by vision not mandates.
Finally, the way for the GMC, each annual conference, and local church to grow funds for ministry is by demonstrating the value being added to the Kingdom. I have been blessed to serve in North America where many churches are blessed financially. My observations have been that individuals are far more generous when there is a vision for how the church will use their resources faithfully.
I applaud the South Georgia Conference of the Global Methodist Church leadership, especially President Pro Tem Rev. Jay Hanson. Our conference has set the required connectional giving at the annual conference level at zero (Chris does point this out in his article). This is a radical departure from the years of receiving letters notifying us how behind we are on apportionments. The days of district superintendents calling churches who already met their mandated giving to give even more to make up for other churches who are behind.
Time will tell if this radical experiment of faith will last. So far, we have been blessed by churches giving to the dynamic mission and ministry blowing fresh wind and fresh fire in our conference.
Conclusion
In fairness to Chris, he does share some objections to his idea. Again, I am grateful for his work but hope we move away from this idea of forcing clergy to take their tithe from the local church.
David Donnan 