Global Methodism Remains A Movement
reflection on the MidSouth GMC Annual Conference
I just returned from the MidSouth Annual Conference of the GMC. Once again, it was in Maryville, TN, at Fairview Church, by the beautiful Smoky Mountains. I was there with my mom, the lay delegate from my church, alongside clergy and delegates from Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and parts of Virginia too. It was so good to see some of you who read my newsletter in real life, and again, thanks so much for reading. It means a lot! My plan is to be a little more disciplined in the months ahead about writing—keep me accountable to it!
But what can I say about the conference? The preaching was fire (especially from Bishop Kenneth Livingston), the worship was full of the Holy Spirit, the focus was on evangelism and making disciples and planting churches, around thirty people were ordained into ministry, and the general spirit of the conference was warm-hearted, unified, missional, and peaceful.
It’s an amazing thing to find yourself, along with others, rediscovering what is so beautiful about your own tradition. It’s like that feeling when you’ve heard a joke so many times, it had long ago ceased to make you laugh—but then a random person tells it to you, and for some reason, you get it again and get the giggles.
Or as T.S. Eliot put it,
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
It felt something like that to me as we worshipped. My mother, who is a part of a new GMC church plant in Louisville (Capstone Community Church, go worship with them!), turned to me as we were singing alongside hundreds of other Methodists, and she said, “This is the church that I grew up in. It was like this!”
And this wasn’t a statement of nostalgia or sentimentality or anything like that. She was recognizing that there was something lost in the mainline Protestant tradition, something central to being Methodist. Over the course of many decades, we lost our birthright, our original reason for being, our zeal for holiness, and traded it (like foolish Esau!) for the temporary craving for cultural power and respectability before the powerful. This wasn’t all Methodists, of course, and it wasn’t all United Methodists—but we cannot deny that this happened!
And this tragic trade sapped our spirit. We had the form of religion, but man, had we lost the power.
But thanks to God, the GMC (alongside many other Wesleyan bodies around the world) is finding that power again. We are retrieving our original mission from the Wesleyan movement (but more importantly from Jesus himself), to spread scriptural holiness across the lands. And this is happening, not because of a top-down plan, not through any hierarchical means, but rather, it’s happening by the movement and leadership of the Holy Spirit. He is leading us back to the fount, to our source, our calling: the beautiful pursuit of holiness, holiness of heart and life.
And sometimes He is leading us a bit like He led the Israelites: in fits and starts, in times of rapid advances, and occasionally into seasons of sitting still and seemingly getting nowhere. It’s simultaneously exciting and frustrating, adventurous and somewhat risky. A little, I don’t know, Book-of-Acts-like, perhaps?
As I looked over the conference, as I heard the preaching and teaching, as we heard testimonies of signs and wonders, testimonies of people who had been rescued by Jesus out of the occult, as I was bathed in prayer, and as I enjoyed time with some of my good friends, what I sensed was a my gratitude to (finally) be where we were. No one in that room was forced to be there or was resentful to be there. It is a coalition of the willing, those who heard the call and said, Here I am, Lord!
I’m grateful, finally, to be a part of a movement. Aren’t you?
And my only prayer right now, O God, is keep us moving! Don’t let us stop. Onward and upward.
I enjoyed this intro video for Bishop Kenneth Livingston, who was just a bright, passionate, Spirit-filled presence at the conference. Nice to hear from some of his friends and family.
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