Trust the Holy Spirit and Each Other

By Bishop Scott J. Jones and Bishop Mark J. Webb

Three weeks from now several hundred Global Methodist leaders will be gathering in San Jose, Costa Rica, to celebrate what God has already done in the Global Methodist Church. And then through holy conferencing, we will discern the next steps for our movement. Before we get to Costa Rica, there are still many details to be completed. Volunteer committees and our GM Church staff are all working hard to complete essential tasks. Key issues are being debated by legislative committees and in social media. We have witnessed the excitement of this moment and rightly so; we have also noticed anxiety among us.

As bishops we want to speak a word to all Global Methodist people: Trust the Holy Spirit. Trust each other.

We are bathing this General Conference in forty days of prayer (prayer guides can be found at So the World Will Know). In addition, many of us started praying months ago for a powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit as we gather in Costa Rica.

For almost two years, we have had the privilege and honor to travel across the GM Church connection, presiding at annual conference sessions in many different countries on four continents. We have seen the Holy Spirit working powerfully in many ways in our new church. We are Spirit led! We are confident the Holy Spirit will continue leading us in the weeks to come and during the General Conference. We know that we will be worshipping and praying every hour while we in Costa Rica; we invite all Global Methodists around the world to join our worship online and daily pray for the Conference.

We also urge you to trust each other and to trust the delegates and leaders of the GM Church. As brothers and sisters in Christ, how we walk with one another, respond to one another and seek the unity of the Spirit that comes in our common calling and confession is our greatest witness. When we face anxious times, trust provides a solid foundation upon which we can stand. When we agree, we can do so with trust. When we disagree, we must do so with trust. We have experienced this gift of trust extended from the beginning of the GM Church. May we continue to guard and extend it.

As bishops we have experienced hundreds of wonderful, Spirit-led leaders shaping the Church and making sacrificial contributions. In our experience, all the members of the Transitional Leadership Council, the general church staff, the general church commissions, and annual conference teams have acted with a passion for our mission and with integrity. We have been blessed to serve Christ with such wonderful people. As is natural, and even necessary, there have been disagreements along the way and compromises have been reached. We have missed some opportunities and mishandled others. We have sometimes lacked the time and personnel to do all we would have liked. These realities will be a part of our future. Creating a new church is a messy process. But thankfully, our God is always and mysteriously at work in the midst of our human messiness.

All over the world today people have issues with trust. We both pray and work to be found trustworthy, and we believe all who are providing leadership in the GM Church are trustworthy. We believe trusting each other will allow the Holy Spirit’s empowerment and guidance to be most effective in all we do in Costa Rica and in all we will continue to be as the GM Church.

Bishop Jones will be preaching Sunday morning, September 22, 2024, during the Conference, and he will reference a powerful Charles Wesley hymn. It summarizes our confidence:

By thy unerring Spirit led,
We shall not in the desert stray;
We shall not full direction need,
Or miss our providential way;
As far from danger as from fear,
While love, almighty love is near.

Let’s continue to trust the Holy Spirit. Let’s continue to trust each other.

We are praying for you and for all the sessions of the Global Methodist Church’s convening General Conference!