From the very beginning, every discussion held by the Northeast Transitional Conference Advisory Team (TCAT) included this question, as a way to hold ourselves accountable. I’m thankful for a team of people who have been so willing to keep pressing us to answer this question. A movement is grounded in grassroots passion. A movement is individuals, leaders, churches, districts, and even a conference praying fervently for a move of the Holy Spirit. All godly movements are fueled by people on their knees crying out to God to move again and still. That’s where it starts.  

It’s also about the Conference being permission-giving and allowing our local churches to give life to their ministries, while not overburdening the churches with extra connectional funding, more paperwork, or more hoops through which to jump. We will need to have SOME of that, but we hope we have that in a right balance to keep resources at the local church for fueling the ministry of worship, mission, and evangelism.

Don’t expect the Conference to give you everything you need to thrive where you are. The guiding philosophy for the GMC from the beginning has been to have only the structure and staff needed to help local churches thrive.  So, own your ministries, processes, and the mission to which God has called you. Avoid waiting for the ‘Conference’ to tell you how to make disciples. Jesus already did that and no one can improve on it.  We will work to resource us as we go, but ministry decisions are yours, guided by the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and GMC Book of Doctrines and Discipline.

That’s the challenge, isn’t it?  From day one, the GMC Transitional Leadership Council has tried hard to live into a new way of being a denomination.  We’re creatures of habit, who often resist the new way of things.  Believe me when I say when we change too much, we get ‘feedback’.  And when we’ve not changed enough, we get ‘feedback’.  The smaller footprint of the denominational structure is one safeguard.  The checks and balances between the Bishops and the TLC is another, new way, of relating to and holding each other accountable.   But mostly, it goes back to the Movement – letting local churches do ministry and not trying to tell you what to do and how to do it.  There are some helpful and useful, Spirit-led parts of the Methodist way that we’ll continue to do.  But, at the end of the day, worship, loving, and witnessing are not just buzzwords.  THAT IS who we are and what we need to focus on.  Class Meetings and Bands are THE pathway forward for each Wesleyan-Methodist disciple.  We often get pushback when we communicate that there’s an expectation in the GMC that every person in every church be part of a Class Meeting.  This is more than Sunday school, as we’ve known it, or even small groups. Sunday school and small groups have their place, but we want to create disciples who do life together and hold each other accountable to worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly…for Jesus and because of Jesus.

(From Steven Taylor) I just left the local church after 20 years of preaching, leading, and ministering.  Over those 20 years, I’ve had times of growth and times of contraction.  That’s normal, I think.  Yet, I’ll tell you that for the past year, the church I served began a process to recapture a passion for Wesley Class Meetings.  This is a weekly gathering of people who have walked through Kevin Watson’s Class Meeting book, and the WCA Vision of Accountable Discipleship. They are fired-up with questions like, “How has God been working in your life?”  and then encouraging each other, praying for each other, and drawing others in.  We must get bold with our witness to our neighbors, friends, family, community, and beyond.  Discipleship starts with people passionately doing life together with others who are growing in their faith, and when spreading scriptural holiness across the land.  We call people to repent, have faith, and live in holiness.

We have a plan!  Well, actually, we have a team that will be prayerfully strategizing a vision for what this will become in our Conference and in the GMC.  We know that we have many places around the world where orthodox Methodism is scarce to non-existent.  Places like Washington, D.C., parts of New York and Pennsylvania, and whole regions of New England.  We also have large areas where local churches are still in lawsuits and legal action against their UM Conferences.  We will keep praying for them and be ready to either welcome those churches into the Conference when they can disaffiliate, or begin to plant new churches from former congregations that could not disaffiliate.  That’s already beginning to happen in parts of the region.  We also need to train church planters and tap into the wisdom of those in our Conference and in the GMC who have planted churches.  The GMC has partnered with The River Network, to train church planters.  Our President Pro Tempore Steven Taylor, will be participating in the next Multipliers Learning Community with The River Network, so he is trained in the strategy of multiplication as he leads us.  More information will be coming. In addition to the spending resources we’ve set aside for church planting strategy and vision, let’s all support the Conference Church Multiplication Fund, where all donations are dedicated to church planting.

We know more churches will align with the Northeast GMC!  In the Northeast, we have churches in some regions that have been really harmed by the UMC’s costly disaffiliation policies and are still hurting from it.  Trust is a critical issue in the process of giving churches a pathway for aligning with the GMC.  We will always be ready to welcome churches into the GMC and we have teams of people ready to go out to talk with churches who are still discerning that. I know some churches and clergy are waiting for the GMC General Conference to see what changes are made and what parts of the Transitional Book of Doctrines and Discipline are solidified.  We continue to want to be a collection of churches who are willing and ready to be part of the GMC.  We don’t want anyone to feel like they have to be part of the GMC ‘or else’. If you know of churches that are still in the discernment process, reach out to me or the Northeast Jurisdiction of the Wesleyan Covenant Association (WCA) team who is always ready to share information.

When we first decided to have one geographically large conference, we were expected 125-150 churches to align with the Northeast GMC.  We currently have 175 churches and more coming each month.  Praise God!  Hopefully, we’ll gain more after disaffiliations are completed, maybe a new pathway from the UMC, and after some of the regional lawsuits are settled.  Yet, the goal will always be to grow to a point that we need to divide.  The TIMEFRAME for that is very murky at this point.  The Church Planting Strategy and Visioning Team will help.  The Presiding Elders will help, along with the Conference Leadership Council.  We will get a better sense of this by engaging with other Conference Presidents Pro Tem and by going through the Multipliers Learning Community.  If you’re interested in that discussion, reach out to Rev. Steven Taylor ([email protected]) and we’ll see how we can plug people in.

Bishop Webb and President Pro Tem Taylor work together closely to care for the congregations, clergy, and leaders in the Annual Conference. Bishops in the GMC are General Superintendents of the church, tasked with defending the faith and casting vision for the GMC. Bishops are also tasked with fixing appointments and ordaining clergy in addition to the general oversight of the church.  The Presidents Pro Tem are the day-to-day operations persons for each Conference. We’re in a unique situation in the Northeast because our Bishop also resides here, and has a very good working and personal relationship with our President. The President is the Conference Superintendent who works with the Cabinet and Conference teams to ensure the vision and culture of the Conference is cast and grown. There’s more coming to General Conference that will delineate the work of the Presidents and Bishops.

So far, this has been somewhat challenging because of the density of our churches in some areas of our Conference.  We have many pastors who are ready to come to the GMC, but are locked into certain geographic areas.  The Northeast Conference Cabinet, made up of the 22 Presiding Elders across the region, prayerful and innovatively deploy clergy leaders to churches awaiting pastors.  We also are lifting up Certified Lay Ministers (CLMs) and Supply Pastors, where needed for a season, while we discern the best pastoral leadership options for each church.  We have clergy and church profiles to help us gather the information about where clergy are needed.  Rev. Rob Townsend, Dean of the Cabinet, has been leading the appointments effort, which began last year when we were a TCAT, with sub-teams across the region.  In some places, this is a slower process than we would like.  Some of that is the result of clergy not wanting to move too far from where they are currently living, and the fact that we have part-time churches that are not near other churches, to create a full-time appointment.

The Cabinet, the churches, and the pastors will work together to fill appointments, move to churches that are open for appointment, and prepare churches for new appointments.  The goal is to leave pastors in place unless there is a missional need to make a change.  There is no specific appointment ‘year’ so pastors can move anytime throughout the year, to fulfill the mission.  We can also connect with other Conferences to make cross-Conference appointments as needed.  At some point, we envision a list of churches that need pastors, so pastors can review that list to see if they feel God calling them to a new region or area of the Conference. The place to start is with your Presiding Elder and then the Cabinet.  We are working diligently to identify opportunities and connect pastors to churches who need pastors.

We haven’t talked about timeframes, per se, either at the TLC (Transitional Leadership Council) meetings or within the Conference.  It will always be the goal to help churches be aligned with the GMC or help them make the decision to choose a different path.  I’d say clergy will need to also make that decision within the next year.

We hear the frustration in this question.  We have a CLM classification in the GMC; however, it is different than in the UMC. You can read about Certified Lay Ministers in ¶402 of the Ministry of the Called: https://globalmethodist.org/what-we-believe/

All of your credentials can be transferred into the Conference with this application:  https://tinyurl.com/Apply-as-a-CLM

We’ve tried to help lift up the ministry of our lay speakers, lay servants, and CLMs. The Board of Ministry is working hard to develop a new pathway for CLMs to be aligned with the Conference, trained as laity serving in the local church, and equipped to come alongside others who are serving in this capacity. However, sacraments are reserved for the ordained clergy in our Methodist polity and in the GMC.

The culture of the Northeast GMC local churches is that we will not only disciple the people in our churches, but make disciples who go out and make more disciples.  For many, Christian apologetics is one way to share the Good News, sharing the Good News through a winsome and logical approach to evangelism.  Polemics is a term that is less used, since it has a more confrontational tone and approach in many settings.  However, it’s clear that we are called to stand on the Word of God and present our reasons to believe in Jesus Christ as Son, Savior, and Lord, in many different ways to a lost and hurting world.  Our local churches know their communities and their regions.  As we get to know each other better across the Conference, we will share ideas and equip each other.  Right now, there are no plans to institute are large-scale effort in the Conference for this approach to witnessing boldly.  Churches are free to develop those strategies and share them with others.

Each of the 12 states in the Northeast Conference has different legal requirements and rules for how local churches are incorporated, what bylaws need to convey, and the process for being a legal entity.  In most cases, bylaws must include a clause that relates our local church governance to the Transitional Book of Doctrine and Discipline (TBDD) whenever there is discrepancy or questions of structure and leadership.  As stated in the TBDD, local churches have some leeway to determine how they organize, but must always comply with the TBDD when there are differences.  We’ve done our best to give latitude for local churches to operate in ways that best meet their needs.  If you have specific questions, start with your attorney and then let us know if we can help.

Technology has been a real godsend for connecting us in the Northeast; however, as we know, video conferences can only take us so far in our authentic connection with each other.  In the coming months, the Presiding Elders and President Pro Tem are planning for regional gatherings to begin to connect local churches and clergy together.  Gatherings across the Conference are also ways to connect regions together.  We will need to be very creative in the ways we gather people together in the same room, to help us create genuine community.  If the Convening Annual Conference in April was any indication, we know that people are hungry to come together to worship, celebrate, talk, serve, and be equipped together.  If you have ideas, we’d love to hear them: [email protected]

This is something that is just getting started, as we create partnerships with other Conferences across the denomination.  The connection that all the President Pro Tem’s have, along with Bishops Webb and Jones, is helping us develop a world-wide network of leaders.  After this year, and the Convening General Conference, there will be a growing number of opportunities to identify places of need and help connect local churches to those needs.  It’s early on in the process, so we ask for patience as we solidify our work together.

There may be from time-to-time and we will share them when available. We encourage people to use the resources that are already available from Seedbed and other places.  If you have questions about a specific resource, contact your Presiding Elder to discuss it: https://www.northeastgmc.org/leaders/