by Chris Ritter

The 2026 General Conference of the Global Methodist Church is upon us. Among the important work before the delegates are adjustments to our Book of Doctrines and Discipline, including a fresh restatement of our core beliefs. We are also electing bishops using a new process overwhelmingly approved at our 2024 convening General Conference. It will be several months before a full analysis of this election process is possible, but the once-every-six-years window calls us to consider what worked well and what needs further refinement.

Let me first say this: I am encouraged. There is strong evidence that the Holy Spirit has been at work in the discernment processes leading up to General Conference. While there are a number of adjustments that need to be made to ¶604, I believe the information provided to delegates in the lead-up to General Conference will prove invaluable.

The Why

Large international bodies comprised of people brought together only every few years present a challenging environment in which to select key leaders. In the absence of relationship, bodies such as these tend to default to two things: name recognition and demographics. By name recognition, I mean someone whose name is often featured in print or social media. By demographics, I mean someone who represents a particular gender, continent, race, or other identifiable group.

These lenses are not bad in and of themselves. But we remember that God’s selection process focuses on internal qualities rather than surface features (1 Samuel 16:7). For this reason, the new process aims at living out our Wesleyan values in the close spiritual examination that can only be achieved through deep and multiple conversations.

The GMC election process assumes that our bishops need to operate with excellence in two spheres. First, they need to be capable spiritual leaders of our whole denomination. Bishops are “itinerant General Superintendents” and steward the whole church through participation in the Assembly of Bishops. At the same time, in a global church, bishops must have the capacity to lead the particular, diverse annual conferences to which they are assigned.

This is why the process has two key features: (1) election by the General Conference and (2) vetting by specific groupings of conferences that will comprise one of our eight episcopal areas.

The new process is not an attempt to do away with politics. (A claim to be apolitical is itself a political claim.) Politics may be neutrally defined as the process by which groups make decisions about their common life. These politics can only ever be as holy and Spirit-led as the community from which they arise. The inputs also matter.

The GMC election process attempts to shift some of the politics of election closer to the grassroots. Principles of good governance suggest that decisions should be made as close as reasonably possible to the people who have to live with those decisions.

A novel feature of the episcopal election process is that conferences are grouped together before General Conference, not after. This creates leadership groups—the Area Committees on Episcopacy (ACEs)—that can interview and evaluate the nominees. Again, these groupings are based on input from the conferences themselves. A key philosophical shift is that bottom-up is to be preferred to top-down.

At the same time, the process maintains that bishops must be capable leaders of the whole church. Hence, the authority to elect bishops belongs to the General Conference alone. The rankings that have been produced to date are informational only.

Encouraging Signs

There are several facets of the election process that show signs of serving the GMC well.

Limited Nominations

For the first time, we mandated that candidates must be nominated by annual conference delegations. This eliminated self-nomination, a feature that has not served the election process especially well. The ability of delegations to nominate only one “of their own” forced some early discernment and kept the candidate pool manageable and geographically broad.

The ability of delegations to also nominate someone from outside their conference kept great leaders from being overlooked. It also caused some candidates to be multiply nominated. This provided a helpful indication of which leaders already have a positive reputation across the church.

Episcopal Areas Formed with Grassroots Input

Delegations were asked to rank other conferences with whom they might fruitfully share a bishop. This created a degree of angst among those who feared it would engender regionalism in our denomination. That proved not to be the case.

The Global Episcopacy Committee assembled the areas based overwhelmingly on the expressed preferences of the various conferences, imposing its own judgment primarily in close-call situations. All of the areas are international and quite diverse. I think this demonstrated that rule-making is not the only way to achieve geographic and cultural diversity.

Two of the eight episcopal areas were very intentional in working together beforehand to rank one another. One area seemingly came together in support of a particular candidate. Another came together based more on geography, although not exclusively so, and still has a very wide cultural footprint overall.

The process intentionally allows for this type of organic alignment. When bishops seek election in 2032, those with an effective area will be more likely to hold their area together and be re-elected. Conferences not served well in their current area can seek new relationships. The areas are fluid and will be revisited every six years.

Moreover, the configuration of episcopal areas must be approved by a plenary gathering comprised of two representatives from every conference. The arrangement ultimately has to work for the whole church.

Vetting

The interview processes conducted this summer by the Area Committees on Episcopacy proved essential. There were many anecdotal reports of the Holy Spirit’s guidance in these interviews. Names were elevated beyond the dynamics of region and name recognition. The “surprises” in the ranking are indication that important work happened in the interviews.

Our ACEs also had access to confidential information that could appropriately guide their discernment, including supervisory reviews and information concerning complaints. General Conference delegates could never realistically duplicate this level of examination during the few days we are together.

Mitigating Cascade Elections

One advantage of the new election process is that it mitigates a dynamic inherent in repeated, at-large balloting. When a candidate is elected, that candidate’s supporters are immediately freed to consolidate behind their next choice. A well-coordinated voting bloc can therefore move from candidate to candidate, creating a cascading effect in which subsequent choices leapfrog candidates who previously demonstrated broader support.

By electing bishops with reference to specific episcopal areas and using the Area Committee ranking data to inform that process, the new system makes each election more responsive to the discernment and needs of the area being served. This reduces the power of sequential vote transfers and helps ensure that the outcome reflects more than the ability of a cohesive bloc to redeploy its votes from one ballot to the next.

Room for Improvement

The election process was drafted in the lead-up to the 2024 convening General Conference. We have learned much since then. There are several proposed adjustments to ¶604 coming from various quarters.

I plan to bring a revision arising from within the Global Episcopacy Committee, primarily drafted by Jason Burnham. This will be offered as a substitute for petitions that, in our judgment, are less workable. Among other things, it will improve timelines and better define roles.

The current process should not be regarded as a finished product. It is a new system being used for the first time. We should preserve what has proven valuable, correct what has not worked as intended, and continue learning.

A Response to Dr. Suzanne Nicholson

Dr. Suzanne Nicholson, Professor of New Testament at Asbury University, offered thoughts on the election process in “Will the Tail Wag the Dog? Practice and Theology at the General Conference of the GMC,” published August 25 in Firebrand Magazine. I appreciate her voice and thoughtful leadership in the church.

Dr. Nicholson expresses her hope that the Holy Spirit will guide the election process and raises concerns that some aspects of the process to date may not serve that end. Those concerns deserve to be considered on their merits. At the same time, any election involving people we know, respect, and support inevitably carries hopes and disappointments for all of us. That human dimension is worth acknowledging, but it should not be confused with the substance of the questions Dr. Nicholson raises about the process itself.

We are in agreement on a fundamental point: polity should be a vehicle for the work of the Holy Spirit, not a competitor with that work.

Everything done to this point has been designed to provide information to the delegates who will elect our next bishops. If the delegates wish to disregard the work of the Area Committees on Episcopacy, they are free to do so. The ACE rankings do not elect anyone.

But I hope none of us succumbs to the fallacy that the Holy Spirit only shows up when General Conference convenes.

The Spirit was at work in 2024 when General Conference approved the new process. The Spirit was at work in 2025 when delegations nominated candidates, provided input on the shape of our episcopal areas, and selected persons to represent them on the Area Committees on Episcopacy. The Spirit has been at work this year in deep conversations about the leadership needs of each area.

Candidates were prayerfully interviewed—sometimes more than once—in light of the unique challenges faced by the conferences comprising each area and the GMC at large. While the rankings were not required to be unanimous, they do, by decision of the plenary gathering of all 102 ACE members, reflect a real majority. Most represent a significant degree of consensus.

In other words, the question is not polity or the Holy Spirit. The better question is whether our polity creates space for sustained, prayerful, well-informed spiritual discernment. I believe this process has done that in ways our previous methods often could not.

The fact that more than one area ranked the same candidate as its top choice is anticipated in our polity, ¶604. In the case of Bishop Mark Webb, who was ranked as the top choice for Areas 3, 5, and 8, the Global Episcopacy Committee met with the ACEs involved and determined that Webb would most fruitfully serve Area 3. This guidance, too, is informational only. But I hope it will be viewed as important information.

Prayer and fasting have been key tools of the GEC and the ACEs throughout this process. We held a fast before the plenary gathering at which areas were approved and ACEs formed. Many of the eight Area Committees undertook fasting and prayer as they completed their rankings. It was a polity process, certainly. But it was also a spiritual process.

Is the election process complex? Yes.

For all our unity, the Global Methodist Church is complicated. Methodist history is complicated. Disaffiliation was complicated. Building a global church is complicated. Drafting and approving new Articles of Faith is complicated. Meeting in South Africa is complicated.

Much of the complexity of the episcopal election process stems from the fact that it aims to be ground-up rather than top-down. The complexity derives from the wide range of inputs gathered as the GMC prepares to elect its next bishops.

Those bishops must be both General Superintendents of the whole church and particular leaders of a set of conferences that need a faithful shepherd able to understand, teach, and lead them. These two dimensions of episcopal leadership need not compete with one another. A healthy episcopacy requires both.

Dr. Nicholson asks, “Will clergy from across the world be elected to serve as bishops of a global church?” She may be referring here to the relatively small number of African nominees who emerged in the ACE rankings. Only three of the twenty-two active candidates are from Africa. Two additional African candidates withdrew for their own reasons. Two African nominees were among the fifteen who appeared in the ACE rankings.

Many U.S. leaders expected African delegates to press hard for the election of African bishops during the interview process. As it turned out, African members seemed to weigh a much wider range of considerations when identifying potential bishops. Among other things, they were looking for persons who could help keep them connected to the rest of the world. There also seemed to be a marked determination among some to move away from the regal, authoritative style of episcopal leadership previously experienced in some quarters of our church.

This is an important lesson in itself. A genuinely global church should be cautious about assuming that delegates from a particular continent, race, or region will—or should—vote primarily according to demographic identity. One of the encouraging features of this process has been watching people consider the needs of the wider church.

Conclusion

As already stated, changes are needed to ¶604. It was, after all, written before we had ever tried to use it. We have learned much since then.

But there are principles I believe we should preserve.

Episcopal candidates should be deeply vetted by those they may serve before they are elected and assigned. General Conference is the appropriate—and only—place where bishops should be elected. And delegates should have the benefit of deep, prayerful, informed discernment when ballots are cast.

May this always be so.

My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will have full sway at General Conference and that those elected will be exactly whom God has chosen for this next season of our life together as a church. Let us perfect what can be perfected, preserve what has proven valuable, and trust the Lord of the Church to be very much involved in the selection of GMC bishops.