Texas Global Methodists Turn from Denominational Decline

“We are no longer a transitional conference—we are an annual conference!” So declared the Rev. Jim Welch, President Pro Tempore of Eastern Texas Global Methodists at their inaugural annual conference session last weekend.

The event was held February 2-4 on the huge campus of Christ Methodist Church, a megachurch in College Station. It gathered some 1,000 participants, primarily consisting of those who have recently transferred into the GMC from the UMC’s (eastern) Texas Annual Conference, as well as some who have done so from Arkansas and Louisiana. Leaders from Global Methodism’s Mid-Texas and West Plains Annual Conferences also attended as observers. With 254 congregations, the Eastern Texas Global Methodist Annual Conference is already larger than many United Methodist annual conferences.

The conference also ordained a massive class of 90 people. Many of these were already United Methodist ministers who were changing their category of ministry. The simplified Global Methodist structure only has two categories of clergy, while United Methodism has more, including, confusingly, categories of “non-ordained clergy.”

Like the Mid-Texas Global Methodist Annual Conference session held a couple weeks earlier, this conference was overwhelmingly positive, forward-looking, and hopeful. Like at that earlier gathering, the only time I recall any speaker saying anything related to homosexuality was when Bishop Scott Jones declared in his episcopal address, to enthusiastic applause, “If you joined this church because you hate LGBTQ people, you’re in the wrong place!” Jones then received further loud applause for declaring “you’re in the wrong place” if you “want to maintain white supremacy,” and again for affirming Global Methodism’s firm support for women in ministry. Twenty-eight-year-old Pastor Tim Turner spoke of how he was “excited to be part of a denomination that is committed to reach and welcome the contributions of younger people.” The conference featured helpful ministry-equipping workshops, a limited business session, and inspiring messages from Jones, Welch, Kenneth Livingston, Heather Sims, and Jerry House.

It was wonderful to experience an annual conference as it should have always been: encouraging, uplifting, inspiring, and focused on promoting making disciples of Jesus Christ, without controversy or spite. A longtime United Methodist leader told me that, in all her years of church involvement, this Eastern Texas Global Methodist Annual Conference’s opening worship was the most powerful she had ever experienced. One pastor gushed to me about how moving it was to finally attend a Methodist annual conference without the awkwardness of sitting next to liberal church leaders who he knew hated him.    

While John Wesley’s distinctive, cherished teaching about Christian perfection has long been ignored in mainline Methodism, Welch emphasized this life goal of “love of God and neighbor with all our hearts.”

Bishop Mark Webb reminded the ordination class that they were “called to serve and not to be served,” while in asking them the historic questions for Methodist ordination, Jones pointedly emphasized, in reference to the denomination’s doctrines, “will you preach and maintain them?” In both cases, there was a new sense of trust that all involved actually meant their words.    

Tables from numerous parachurch ministries were featured along the sizable display hall, but unlike at United Methodist annual conferences, none were devoted to openly promoting unbiblical political causes on sexual morality or anything else.

It was particularly moving to be in a conference with hundreds of others with whom I have been united in the UMC to recite the Apostles Creed together, affirming our shared commitment to the basic doctrines of historic, biblical Christian faith.

The Global Methodist Church and its commitment to unity around core doctrine is not for everyone. In United Methodism’s Indiana Conference, a district superintendent sent a mass email on April 27 expressing his “Concerns and Warning!” against people helping organize the GMC. This prominent Indiana United Methodist leader declared, “I am a United Methodist because our doctrines are not mandatory for clergy to preach and maintain” and “I am not interested in policing doctrines.” What a remarkable statement! While the UMC Discipline (Paragraph 336.10) requires ordination candidates to promise to “preach and maintain” the UMC’s official doctrines, a top official in even a relatively conservative conference (by American United Methodist standards) announces that this church law is actually “not mandatory.”

It raises the question of if there are any limits. After all, United Methodism now includes at its highest levels of spiritual leadership bishops who deny the sinlessness of Jesus Christ (a belief shared by a great many UMC members), deny the His miraculous physical resurrection, and/or believe that in the UMC, “it is not important that we agree on who Christ is.” In the face of this, one former president of the global United Methodist Council of Bishops has reportedly justified her anti-ecumenical hostility against Global Methodism by claiming that the GMC is creedal while the UMC is not. I recently received an email from a United Methodist General Conference delegate in Texas telling me “It is time for you to move on to your homogenous denomination” and let the UMC move on without me.

Rev. Dr. Chappell Temple led a workshop on the GMC’s new catechism, emphasizing that in the GMC, “there is a set of defining core beliefs,” grounded in Scripture. He traced the UMC’s long history of “doctrinal amnesia,” from a 1910 Methodist Review article claiming, “Creeds have had their day” and “are no longer effective” to the UMC’s officially embracing “theological pluralism” to one United Methodist bishop infamously denying core Christian doctrines. Temple conceded that the 20^th-century formulation misleadingly called the “Wesleyan quadrilateral”—of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience—“can be a helpful tool if used properly.” But ultimately, it violates Methodism’s First Restrictive Rule, has been used to prioritize subjective individual experience over the consensus of the church, and “as a theological tenet simply does not work.”

The GMC is determined to move in a new direction. Temple warned that without a strong doctrinal grounding, any renewal movement will sputter out prematurely. The denomination restores the historic Methodist practice of including the word “doctrine” in its governing book of Doctrines and Discipline. The GMC also has an official catechism, a relatively brief document for teaching the denomination’s doctrines, which Temple says the GMC will expect its congregations to use for its members.

Yes, the GMC carries on many continuities from United Methodism. After all, it is the denomination for United Methodists who remain loyal to the UMC’s historic moral and Doctrinal Standards. Texas Global Methodists remain in partnership with some entities—like Wespath and the Texas Methodist Foundation—with whom they previously worked as United Methodists. Jones declared that now that he is a Global Methodist bishop, his work is doing what he signed up to do when he became a United Methodist bishop.

However, the assembled Texas Global Methodists were strongly challenged to not simply continue as they were in the UMC. Jones warned, “don’t think just changing the sign” of your congregation’s denominational label is a cure-all. The decades of unrelenting U.S. membership decline of United Methodism is all that many have ever known. Pivoting away from “business as usual” and unlearning bad habits “is not quick and easy,” Jones said. Rev. Keith Boyette, the GMC’s Transitional Connectional Officer, admitted that this journey “is not for the faint-hearted.” He stressed that the GMC was committed to the values of accountability, transparency, and treating denominational structures as not existing for their own sake but rather to help and support congregations.

The strong emphasis I heard throughout the conference was the urgency of Texas Global Methodists re-dedicating themselves to making disciples of Jesus Christ. And that all of us, clergy and laity, are called to this holy mission. This included enthusiasm for planting new congregations. Rev. Jason Burnham, the conference’s Executive Officer, observed that “bottom-up, lay-led, grassroots efforts” of church-planting are already underway, and shared that seven new congregations with pastors have already joined the conference.

The conference has a team specifically focused on church-planting and other evangelistic initiatives among African-American and Hispanic communities. Remember that the United Methodist Church from which the GMC is emerging has long been one of the least racially diverse denominations in America. Team chair Artie Cadar reported that Hispanics accounted for over half of all U.S. population growth in the past decade. Rev. Cadar shared his hope and prayer that Global Methodists would come together to support Hispanic ministries “in ways no denomination has ever done before.” Eastern Texas Global Methodism already includes 13 Hispanic pastors with their congregations. Rev. Kenneth Levingston, the former president of his United Methodist conference’s chapter of Black Methodists for Church Renewal and now an Eastern Texas Global Methodist presiding elder, lamented how eastern Texas United Methodists had not successfully planted a new predominantly African-American congregation in decades, and challenged Texas Global Methodists to do better.

Levingston also passionately rejected the “false and vicious rumor” spread by anti-GMC propagandists that the denomination will not have places for female or non-white clergy to serve. He also challenged those gathered to commit to ensuring this rumor will not come true.

In another workshop, the Rev. Dr. Robert Childress urged abandoning the “Field of Dreams strategy.” Thinking “if you build a church, they will come” just “doesn’t work anymore.” He challenged congregations to find ways to go out and meet people where they are, both to share the Gospel and to address social problems. He led the room in sharing various creative ways in which even congregations with very limited resources have been able to do just that, with God’s help.

Jones, Welch, and Board of Ministry Chair Burt Palmer all stressed that Global Methodism will seek to consistently have a more collaborative process for pastoral appointments than has sometimes been seen in the UMC. The “areas” into which the conference is geographically sub-divided have presiding elders who work with the President Pro Tempore in making appointments. Then Eastern Texas Global Methodist areas have multiple “circuit presiding elders” focused on nurturing and connecting nearby pastors. Furthermore, the GMC intentionally shortens the distance between a person feeling called and becoming a pastor, including by eliminating district committees on ministry.

The conference adopted an interim budget (see pages 32-35). The Eastern Texas Global Methodist Conference will meet again in July, and among other things, may then consider adjusting its budget numbers after learning more about its financial realities. Eighteen of the 254 Eastern Texas Global Methodist congregations applied for financial-hardship waivers from denominational connectional funding requirements. All were approved. Some particular circumstances from UMC’s Houston-based Texas Annual Conference resulted in increased congregational bills for staff health-insurance benefits. But this was more than offset by dramatic reductions in denominational funding. One pastor whose congregation owed some $239,000 in total UMC apportionments in 2022 told me that between increased health insurance costs and lower GMC connectional giving levels, his congregation’s net savings in 2023 were $128,000 (based on the interim budget). Another pastor told me his congregation had had to pay about $67,000 in total UMC apportionments in 2022, and saw a net reduction of about $49,000 in combined health-insurance and denominational funding obligations for 2023. A third pastor whose congregation’s total 2022 UMC apportionments were about $32,000 told me that the net results of increased health-insurance costs combined with lower GMC connectional funding saved his congregation some $23,000. Even if the Eastern Texas Global Methodist Conference later increases its budget as dramatically as doubling it, the net savings from United Methodism would still be massive, in all three cases.

Bishop Mark Webb celebrated God’s movement among Eastern Texas Global Methodists, but shared, “my heart breaks for” the many like-minded Methodists across America and around the world who have not yet been able to join the GMC. (As one who remains in the UMC for now, I appreciated that.) Boyette acknowledged the “wounds and scars” of those gathered. But when people hurl slings and arrows, he invoked Nehemiah’s response of being engaged in too great a work to be drawn away. Despite the slow-motion nature of our denominational separation, Jones told the gathered Texas Global Methodists, “The momentum is in our direction!”

Resources from the ministry-equipping workshops of this first Eastern Texas Global Methodist Annual Conference are available here: https://etxgmc.org/workshop-resources

Videos of the plenary sessions can be watched on the Eastern Texas Global Methodist Church channel on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@etxgmc