Watch Us Grow

By Keith Boyette

Fifteen months from its launch, the Global Methodist Church continues to grow and mature. Much has occurred in this 15-month period, fueled by an army of dedicated, passionate, committed Christ followers. And we are only just beginning! The numbers only tell part of the story. We now have 3,100 congregations and 3,400 clergy aligned with the GM Church with more added weekly.

In the past fifteen months, we have organized regional bodies in Alabama-Emerald Coast, Allegheny West, Bulgaria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eastern Texas, the Great Lakes, Mid-Texas, North Alabama, North Carolina, the Philippines, Slovakia, South Carolina, South Georgia, Spain, and West Plains. Soon additional regional bodies will begin operating in Florida, the Heartland, the Mid-South, Mississippi-West Tennessee, the Northeast, the Upper Midwest, Virginia, and the West. Discussions and organizing efforts are underway in a number of countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Mexico, and South America.

A key missional priority for the GM Church is a commitment to multiplication. We celebrate the more than 100 new GM churches that are being planted around the world. Most are entirely new churches while a few have occurred as the result of local churches not reaching the required vote to disaffiliate. New churches have been planted in the Middle East, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Canada, the Philippines and throughout the United States. Plans are underway to plant new congregations in Chicago and Los Angeles as well as in countless communities across the U.S. Some of these new churches have received assessment, training, and coaching through our partnership with The River Network. Grants for some of the new GM Church plants are now available through the GM Church’s partnership with Asbury Theological Seminary. Asbury made a $500,000 matching gift to fund such grants, and donors to the GM Church have contributed $280,000 thus far in matching funds. Additionally, a fourth group of church multipliers will begin a journey as a Multipliers Learning Community (MLC) cohort in partnership with Exponential this fall designed to equip persons to fulfill our missional priority of being a multiplying movement. There is still room for additional participants in the MLC cohort. Email me if you are interested.

Multiplication does not happen without visionary, spirit-filled leadership. The GM Church has partnered with the International Leadership Institute to provide training in eight core values that are at the heart of being a multiplying movement – intimacy with God, passion for the harvest, visionary leadership, culturally relevant evangelism, multiplication of leaders, family priority, faithful stewardship, and integrity. The GM Church’s Transitional Leadership Council and most of the presidents pro tem of our provisional annual conference will participate in a week of training addressing these core values in September. Our goal is to see such training offered in each of our regional bodies. Allegheny West and North Alabama have already committed to offer such training in their areas.

Our commitment to enhanced biblical teaching and preaching has resulted in the release of our Catechism which has already sold over 16,000 copies as many congregations are using it in transformational small groups, bible studies, and new member classes.

The GM Church is committed to maintaining a small general church footprint, striving to keep bureaucracy and institution to a minimum. We have a small general church staff, which is only growing to the extent that circumstances demand. We recently added a Treasurer/Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Pospisil, and two full-time employees in our Benefits Office.

Consequently, general church connectional funding is only one percent of a local church’s operating income. We are grateful for the many churches that are currently remitting such funds, enabling significant ministry to occur worldwide. Yet the amount churches are contributing to fund general church operations is significantly less than churches expended before aligning with the GM Church. The general church is providing services for the benefit of local churches that include managing and processing health, life, and disability insurance, retirement benefits, and a GM Church-wide child safety and protection program, MinistrySafe.

Annual conference connectional funding is also significantly less than churches paid previously and range between one and five percent of a local church’s operating income. Yet, our provisional annual conferences are committed to global partnerships linking conferences in one part of the world with conferences elsewhere. Recently, the Bulgaria Provisional Annual Conference committed to a plan to be self-sufficient in five years, and the Mid-Texas Provisional Annual Conference partnered with them to provide funds to undergird this effort as Bulgaria makes this transition. In addition to the financial commitment, the two provisional annual conferences will explore significant ways in which they can be involved in one another’s ministries and build personal relationships among their churches, clergy, and laity.

Work is underway to hold the GM Church’s convening General Conference in the later summer or fall of 2024.

The most significant ministry occurs daily in the communities served by GM churches around the world. Please join me in praying that every local church, every clergy person, and every lay person will be filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit so that we will be fully equipped to introduce our neighbors to Jesus and help them become His fully devoted disciples. Give thanks for what God has already done in a very short time in the GM Church.

The Rev. Keith Boyette is the Transitional Connectional Officer for the Global Methodist Church, its chief executive and administrative officer.