[Update: The Pattison Amendment was approved 231 to 99. The amended petition was approved by an overwhelming margin.]

by Chris Ritter

Perhaps the most contested issue facing delegates will be the election of additional, transitional, part-time bishops to serve the next two years. It is anticipated more conferences will join the GMC from around the world in the coming months. Six transitional bishops are to relieve the over-worked current bishops, Jones and Webb, and create a bridge to regular elections at General Conference 2026.

There was a publicized nomination process for transitional bishops prior to General Conference, but delays in finalizing the plan affected communication. The Episcopacy Task Force needed more time for its work than was anticipated. Once the TLC received the work of the Task Force, it spent a month making its own adjustments. Two information streams seemed to have flowed back to the annual conferences. Some conferences heard that they were to nominate up to one person from their conference and one person from outside their conference as bishop. Neither was to be at all interested in serving beyond two years. Other conferences heard from sources in the TLC that nominations need not be limited to just one from the conference and that a second term was possible with super-majority support (not a terribly high bar for an incumbent bishop).

When the first round of nominees were received by the TLC (July 15), they ranked the candidates to whittle the number down to a slate of nine. (The legislation they approved called for a slate 1.5 times as large as the actual number of bishops proposed to be elected.) Those TLC members themselves nominated as bishops recused themselves in how that whittling process would be handled. Cara Nicklas, TLC chair, reported to the Episcopacy & Superintendency Legislative Committee that the TLC did some marvelous work, but this whittling process was admittedly not the best example of that excellence. They were under time pressure and voted their choices without other forms of vetting. Against a deadline, it was a rushed ranking based simply on those they knew and trusted. I have every reason to believe that TLC stands behind their larger process, however.

When the TLC list of nine was released, delegations who labored under a certain understanding were surprised to see the names of people that did not fit the “two years and done” profile. They were expecting to see near retirement-age folks willing to shepherd the church for only a brief time with no ambitions toward re-election. They also noticed that some of nine came from the same conference. This violated the one-per-conference expectation they understood to be in effect.

A second round of nominees solicited by the TLC (August 21 deadline) was designed to create openness. This second tier included those previously cut by the TLC and any others nominations that may come. The idea was that General Conference delegates could pick their top three off this secondary list to add to the TLC slate. A herculean communications effort was launched to interview each candidate and hold town hall conversations so that delegates could get to know the candidates. All the while, a second plan for residential episcopacy arose from Florida that would have eliminated the need for interim bishops altogether. While that proposal has now been eliminated, it created further uncertainty in the lead-up to General Conference.

Three of the “second wave” candidates were from Nigeria which only recently joined the GMC. When the four Nigerian conferences were still in the United Methodist Church, they were preparing for episcopal elections under the UMC system to replace the retiring Bishop Yohanna. This West Africa Central Conference process called for three candidates to be selected from the Nigeria episcopal area. When the Nigerian conference joined the GMC, they forwarded these candidates to the TLC with Dr. John Pena Auta being the top choice. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation and tensions are incredibly high with the remaining UMC members there. One might argue that a Nigerian bishop would go a long way toward stabilization. Bishop Yohanna has promised not to continue in office, putting to rest accusations that he is only moving to the GMC in order to extend his tenure. One of the three Nigerian candidates has dropped out in support of Dr. Auta’s candidacy.

The second wave of candidates also included at least one candidate that self-nominated, a relative unknown even to their own delegation. Some second-round nominees are not present here in Costa Rica (it is hard to lay hands on someone not present). So the second tier is mixed with some having annual conference endorsements and others not. Nigeria does not have a delegation seated at the General Conference to support their nominees.

The Challenge

Some delegations feel the process has been flawed and it would be better to clear the pool of candidates and start over. Other delegates would say that starting over does a terrible injustice to the candidates that have been advanced by a process whose imperfections were no fault of their own. Both perspectives have merit. This is the conundrum inherited by the Episcopacy & Superintendency Legislative Committee.

The Episcopacy and Superintendency Committee (of which I am a part) met to perfect Petition 114, the process for election of transitional bishops. It was agreed that the threshold for electing transitional bishops to a second term in 2026 should be quite high, but we chose not to completely shut the door. We raised the voting threshold from 2/3 to 3/4 and stated that no more than 50% of the transitional bishops could possibly be extended. This allowed for some continuity while holding spots for new bishops to join the episcopacy in 2026.

More controversially, the legislative committee proposed to start the process over and invite all delegations to nominate candidates afresh at this General Conference. We proposed to bar conferences from nominating more than one person and from nominating anyone outside their conference. But this created two problems. Nigeria does not have a seated delegation here to nominate Dr. Auta. A work-around for Nigeria made its way into the Episcopacy Legislative Committee’s proposal (see below). In the case of Carolyn Moore (one of the TLC nine), she was previously nominated by two other annual conferences, but not her own. North Georgia nominated Dr. John Beyers. Congolese delegates on the Episcopacy and Superintendency Committee expressed reluctance toward approving a process that would introduce a wave of new candidates. They know who they want and are not looking for undo disruptions to a previously announced process.

There are important pieces of our work that I fully support. Starting over by removing all existing candidates, however, does more harm than good. If left as printed, our work…

  1. does harm to those who came to San Jose as episcopal candidates. 
  2. requires delegations to go back and do work they have already done, whether they want to or not. 
  3. harms one candidate who was duly nominated by two delegations not their own. 
  4. forces two delegations to choose between leaders they understood already properly nominated.
  5. singles Nigeria out and creates an irregular process for getting a Nigerian candidate back in the process. Mentioning Nigeria in the process may have the unintended effect of putting our collective thumb on the scale.
  6. makes the General Conference delegates labor to arrive at a slate of nine candidates, an artificial number that only made sense prior to General Conference as a guard against the TLC nominating only six candidates for six slots.

A word of fairness to my fellow legislative committee members: As an internal processor, I arrived at these concerns only after the plan was approved and our work completed.

A simple fix to these problems (at the bottom of this post) has been recommended by Great Lakes President pro tem Scott Pattison, with help from Cara Nicklas. It would accept all sixteen remaining candidates already nominated into the pool and allow delegations that wish to bring other candidates. The General Conference plenary body would then undertake its prayerful balloting process. The intent is to honor the work that has been done and add to it as needed.

The good news is that Episcopacy & Superintendency unanimously approved a much clearer process for the 2026 elections. The task of this General Conference is to find a way with integrity to elect six, part-time transitional bishops to serve while the Global Methodist Church continues to form. An imperfect process was inevitable with such a unprecedented, global, organizational gathering as we now are holding. But we all trust God is able to bring us to a worthy result.

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The bold type represents changes made to the original plan by the Episcopacy and Superintendency Legislative Committee.

RESOLUTION ON THE ELECTION OF ADDITIONAL BISHOPS OF
THE GLOBAL METHODIST CHURCH AT THE CONVENING GENERAL CONFERENCE

BE IT RESOLVED that the following provisions shall govern the election of bishops at the convening General Conference of the Global Methodist Church and during the service of such bishops from 2024 to their successors begin their service following the 2026 General Conference:

1.  Exclusive of Bishop Scott Jameson Jones and Bishop Mark James Webb who are continuing to serve as bishops of the Global Methodist Church, the delegates of the convening General Conference will develop a slate of nominees in the following manner. 

a. Each Delegation will be given the opportunity to nominate one candidate from their annual conference who is in attendance at the Convening General Conference. After conferring with their delegations, the Heads of Delegation or their designee will be called upon, one at a time, to nominate their candidate or abstain. No delegation can nominate someone from outside of their annual conference. For purposes of the Convening General Conference only, delegations will include representatives present from the four annual conferences from Nigeria.

b. All candidates will be placed on a single ballot where delegates shall vote on their top nine candidates. The top nine vote recipients will then be set as the slate of nominees for Bishop.”

2.    The convening General Conference shall elect the number of additional bishops as determined by the Transitional Leadership Council and announced prior to the opening session of the convening General Conference. In order for a person to be elected as a bishop, a person must receive sixty percent plus one vote of the delegates present and casting valid ballots.

3.    Persons elected as bishops at the convening General Conference shall be consecrated as such prior to adjournment of the Convening General Conference. Such persons shall begin service as bishops on November 1, 2024.  Such persons shall serve as bishops until their successors who are to be elected at the 2026 General Conference begin service following the adjournment of the 2026 General Conference. If such persons are not elected as bishops at the 2026 General Conference, their term of office as a bishop shall then terminate and they shall be bishop emeriti of the Global Methodist Church.

4.    No person elected as bishop at the convening General Conference, with the exception of Bishops Jones and Webb, shall be permitted to stand for election to the episcopacy at the 2026 General Conference unless such person receives a three quarter majority vote of the delegates present and casting ballots at the 2026 General Conference. No more than one half of the new elected bishops may be re-elected to one 6 year term. Bishops Webb & Jones will not be included in the new half number. In a circumstance where more than half of the bishops elected in 2024, excluding Bishops Webb and Jones, reach the 3/4 threshold necessary for inclusion on the ballot, the nominees eligible to stand for election shall be determined by the order of their election until the 1/2 threshold is reached.

5.    All persons elected to serve as bishops at the convening General Conference, excluding Bishops Jones and Webb (who will receive full-time compensation), will receive part-time compensation from general church funds with their compensation determined by the General Committee on Episcopacy after consultation with the Transitional Leadership Council. This compensation will take into account the regional differences in the cost of living and the currency exchange rate.

6.    Bishops elected at the convening General Conference, including Bishops Jones and Webb, will be assigned annual conferences to serve by the General Committee on Episcopacy.  Prior to assignment, the General Committee on Episcopacy shall receive consultation from the Transitional Leadership Council and Bishops Jones and Webb. In addition, the General Committee on Episcopacy shall receive input from each annual conference delegation through their delegation head no later than 20 days after the close of the convening General Conference offering their top three choices for episcopal assignment for their annual conference.

Pattison proposed amendment to the above:

I move to amend the presented Petition 114, paragraph 1 to read – 1. Exclusive of Bishop Scott Jameson Jones and Bishop Mark James Webb who are continuing to serve as bishops of the Global Methodist Church, the nominees to serve as interim two-year bishops of the Global Methodist Church beginning November 1, 2024 shall consist of the nominees presented by the Transitional Leadership Council, and the additional nominees submitted prior to the convening General Conference, who are present at the convening General Conference. In addition, if a delegation that has not already nominated a nominee has discerned they have a clergy who possesses the gifts to serve as an interim bishop they may nominate one clergy from their conference, who is also present at this convening conference, to this pool by submitting that name to the Conference Secretary at least one plenary session before the election of bishops. The body will utilize this pool in the discerning and balloting process to elect the identified number of interim bishops.