It was another great day. As usual, worship and Holy Communion were the first order of the day. Rev. Luciano Pereira Da Silva brought this morning’s message. One unique thing we experienced was that Rev. da Silva preached entirely in Spanish, so he had a translator on stage with him. It was great to hear God’s Word reach our ears through such a creative method.

After worship, we begin an almost full day of plenary meetings (main session work).

One correction from yesterday. I was incorrect in saying that we signed the covenant agreement with the Korean Methodist Church. Yesterday we only voted to approve the covenant. Today, just before lunch, we were joined by Bishops and other leaders of the Korean Methodist Church and heard an address by their Bishop President. We now have two covenant partners, and as a church, we are encouraged to keep looking across the street for ways we can serve with those of other denominations.

We also had a celebration ceremony for our retiring Bishops. In the Global Methodist Church, those elected to the office do not remain active bishops for life. After they leave the role, they retain the title of “Bishop Emeritus”. Those who still wish to serve in a vocational capacity may return to the local church or find another ministerial post. Bishops Auta, Evariste, Greenway, Gregory, and Levingston have served our church well during these last two interim years, and Bishop Jones has been a faithful leader as full-time bishop for the last four. Each of them was part of a historic era in the infancy of the Global Methodist Church.

Items from the plenary:

• We established a way for each Annual Conference to provide ministry scholarships for seminary and course of study students. This is significant help for our pastors.
• We clarified the process for submitting petitions and resolutions to the General Conference.
• We changed the name of “Supply Pastor” to “Parish Pastor,” which better aligns with our history and will eliminate confusion.
• Perhaps one of the biggest events was the passage of three pieces of our “Covenant Connections” package. We were able to get significant language around how clergy (including deacons and elders) live into the covenant with each other and the church. This is a monumental move that will help us recover and live into our heritage as Methodists. We are hopeful that our theological petition related to Covenant Connections will pass tomorrow.
• One disappointing part of our morning was that we didn’t establish the expectation of a prayer network in every annual conference. While every annual conference is free to do so (and North Alabama has one in place!), the petition would have set a priority (but not a mandate) for each conference to do so. To be clear, no one in the room was against prayer; however, there was unease in establishing another Annual Conference committee or trying to “legislate” prayer. You put in writing what you value, and I would have liked to see our denomination value prayer networks enough to include them in our governance.

We ended the day with a wonderful meal provided to our delegation by the Annual Conference as a thank you for all of our work this week. It was fun to sit with colleagues and hear stories from our shared work this week. Tomorrow promises to be a very eventful day, as I expect we will make decisions about our updated doctrinal statements and how we will elect Bishops in 2032. So, until then, goodnight!