Updated April 20, 2024 Much is Happening. Stay informed. Members of Team Caffeine receive informed analysis of what is happening related to separation and the emerging shape of the next Methodisms. Your $5/month kick-in keep this site operating and delivers exclusive content to your inbox each Monday. Just hit the button below to sign up. One-time gifts via Paypal are always welcome via @teamcaffeine. Click Here to Join Team Caffeine You can help maintain the Compendium by sending relevant links and objective descriptions to pneedj@gmail.com. Thousands of people visit this site regularly for t ..read more

by Chris Ritter On April 10, the Transitional Leadership Council (TLC) of the Global Methodist Church released key recommendations related to the governance of the denomination. The release of disciplinary language provides long-awaited answers to questions about bishops, the future role of presidents pro tem, and the governance model that will go into effect once the TLC dissolves in September. All these recommendations, of course, are subject to the approval of the convening General Conference (Sept. 20-26). Although I served on the Episcopacy Task Force, this analysis is based solely on the ..read more

by Bob Phillips Recently the Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church issued the following specific demands/calls regarding the moral tragedy of the current war in Gaza: “Church and Society has joined with United Methodist and ecumenical partners in calling on the U.S. government to: • Support an immediate ceasefire, de-escalation, and restraint by all involved. • Ensure immediate and adequate access to and provision of humanitarian needs. • Press all parties to abide by the Geneva Conventions and customary international law. • Demilitarize the conflict by withholding furthe ..read more

by Chris Ritter [See also “The Legacy of Methodist Bishops, Part One: Coke & Asbury” and “The Legacy of Methodist Bishops, Part Two: Negotiating Episcopal Power“] In this third installment, we depart from James Kirby‘s outline of structural developments in Methodist episcopacy to consider the spiritual leadership of early Methodist bishops. There is a tendency to reduce the episcopacy to a gear in a larger denominational machine and miss that early Methodist bishops were primarily apostolic evangelists… missionaries with a mission field. There is something of a myth that American Meth ..read more

by Chris Ritter Back in 2017, I was honored to author a chapter called “Faithfully Engaging the Scriptures” in A Firm Foundation: Hope and Vision for a New Methodist Future, published by Seedbed for the Wesleyan Covenant Association. Better honoring the Bible was an identified denominational corrective for the Christians that would later form the Global Methodist Church. Now that our church is headed toward its convening General Conference in September 2024, a respectful debate is underway on how to define that honor. The GMC is not really at risk of leaving San Jose like United Methodism ..read more

Updated March 15, 2024 Much is Happening. Stay informed. Members of Team Caffeine receive informed analysis of what is happening related to separation and the emerging shape of the next Methodisms. Your $5/month kick-in keep this site operating and delivers exclusive content to your inbox each Monday. Just hit the button below to sign up. One-time gifts via Paypal are always welcome via @teamcaffeine. Click Here to Join Team Caffeine You can help maintain the Compendium by sending relevant links and objective descriptions to pneedj@gmail.com. Thousands of people visit this site regularly for t ..read more

by Chris Ritter The Global Methodist Church inherits legacies from several denominational expressions spanning nearly 250 years. This second installment on Methodist episcopacy covers the first decades of a young church in an experimental nation. This series is designed to provide context for the weighty decisions that will be made in Costa Rica at the GMC Convening General Conference in September 2024. Part One traced the history of the first Methodist bishops and Francis Asbury’s rise as Methodism’s episcopal prototype. Although a restrictive rule was adopted in 1808 to prevent General Confe ..read more

by Chris Ritter A significant question facing the Global Methodist Church’s convening General Conference (September 2024 in Costa Rica) is the ultimate shape of our episcopacy. Having decided in favor of bishops, how will the GMC version compare with its predecessors? Will there be innovations? Should we expect additional imports from other denominations? As we await proposals on the number, function, selection, and assignment of bishops, I thought it might be helpful to review the relevant history. I draw heavily from The Episcopacy in American Methodism by James Kirby (Kingswood Books, Abing ..read more

Updated February 24, 2024 Welcome to this collection of links from various sources related to developments in the Global Methodist Church. Inclusion of content is not an endorsement. GMC Links is not an official news organ of the GMC. This site is supported by Team Caffeine, church leaders who kick in $5/month. As a thank you, they receive weekly e-mails with exclusive content and analysis. Join Team Caffeine You can also visit the GMC Links 2023 Archive. Please suggest links to pneedj@gmail.com The Latest “The Legacy of Methodist Bishops, Part Two: Negotiating Episcopal Power” by Chris Ritter ..read more

by Chris Ritter Jeffrey Rickman conjured a voice from United Methodism’s past by securing an interview with Kenneth Feinberg, the attorney who oversaw the negotiation of the Protocol of Grace and Reconciliation through Separation. Centrists and Progressives in the UMC left the Protocol behind, Feinberg with it, once they realized that U.S. conservatives would leave without it. Traditionalists, lately occupied with disaffiliation and starting new expressions of Methodism, rarely mention the Protocol either. Rickman’s interview, which revealed Senator Hillary Clinton was involved with securing F ..read more