News from the 2025 NC Annual Conference of the Global Methodist Church (Part 1)

My dear Theophilus of Clayton,

Praise the Lord! It is my joy to share with you about the recent Annual Conference of the North Carolina Conference of the Global Methodist Church. We met over four days in the Benton Convention Center in downtown Winston-Salem. Clayton Methodist Church was well-represented with eight of our members participating – our pastors, our lay representatives, a Conference employee, two vendors, and a member participating in the worship service. Despite its non-religious setting, the atmosphere was of a prayer-filled revival meeting!

The first offering collected by the Conference was a commitment to leave the community where we gathered better than when we arrived. We blessed City Lights Rescue Mission of Winston Salem with $5,626.86 for their work in feeding children. Winston-Salem has the 4th highest rate of hunger across the United States (Gallup). The people called Methodists sought to be a blessing to a city who welcomed us warmly.

Inside the Conference, the Spirit of God moved mightily. Small groups gathered in the corridor to pray together. There was strong preaching and excellent teaching on holiness and evangelism. The people boldly professed their faith with The Apostles’ Creed. The sweet sounds of Southern Gospel music filled the auditorium during worship. Our new bishop led us in acapella hymns and choruses through the voting process of our Conference delegation to next year’s General Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa.

I was blessed by one of those prayer circles soon after I arrived. I sought out a dear spirit-filled brother in Christ to pray over me. The burden within my anxious and troubled heart was lifted. The Holy Spirit backfilled my heart to prepare me for great days of Methodist conferencing.

The theme of the Conference was “Holy Love: God Initiates, We Respond.” This grace is the transforming power of God’s presence and action within each one of us as well as the world. We focused in worship-filled work to deepen our relationship with God – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – and to be responsive to “The Three Calls of God.” Bishop Greenway spoke of these “three calls” in a moving Ordination sermon. Each one of us will receive each call initiated by God. We choose to respond or not.

While twenty-nine faithful Christians – trained and examined – were ordained at Conference, the third call “to serve Jesus” is for each one who professes “Jesus is Lord.” Every member of Jesus’ church is to have a ministry and mission. We are Christ’s body serving under His head. Our role of service is what God has called and equipped us to serve and do. Not everyone is called to the ministry of preaching, teaching, and ordering the church, but everyone is called to serve in the ministry of Jesus Christ.

This Holy Love we are called to respond to comes from God. The Apostle John the Beloved summed up the Son of God’s incarnation, life, suffering, and death on the cross in these words, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Then through an epistle, the same apostle instructs us about how to respond to God’s initiative, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16).