This October, the United Methodist Council of Bishops will host leaders from the episcopal areas around the world in Calgary, Canada, for "Emboldened by the Spirit: Imagining a Church Yet to Be,” a meeting to envision the denomination’s future.

From the Northern Illinois-Wisconsin Area, Rev. Violet Johnicker, Rev. Fabiola Grandon-Mayer, Eugene Williams, and Rev. Jeremiah Cottrell-Duebner will participate.

“After the 2024 General Conference in Charlotte, N.C., where our church adopted a renewed vision and took bold steps toward being a fully inclusive, global, and contextual body of Christ, the Council of Bishops sensed the Holy Spirit calling us to more than institutional survival,” explained Mr. Williams, Northern Illinois Conference co-lay leader.

The meeting is “a first-of-its-kind representative gathering bringing together bishops, general secretaries, clergy, laity, and young adults from across our connection to pray, listen, and imagine together,” he said.

Further, it is not a legislative body, but  “consultative and exploratory, feeding into future discernment processes,” said Rev. Grandon Mayer, NIC’s director of connectional ministry.

Each episcopal area group will include at least one person under age 35, demonstrating the bishops’ emphasis on amplifying the voices of young adults.

The foundational questions guiding the gathering will be based in part on John Wesley’s concerns: What are we teaching? How are we teaching? and What are we doing? Additionally, the leaders will ask how we support it and why we do it.

Rev. Fabiola Grandon-Mayer, the NIC’s director of connectional ministries, explained that participants will be organized into covenant groups aligned with five key expressions of connectional life: discipleship, leadership, impact, stewardship, and accountability. Each group will work through three critical lenses:

· Engaging younger generations: How do we meaningfully connect with and empower the next generation?

· Deepening disciple formation: How do we disciple in a Wesleyan and Methodist way?

· Elevating global and connectional voices: How do we showcase both distinctive and connectional identity across our worldwide church?

Ultimately, they will develop reports that “name core realities and root problems we must face with honesty, articulate a renewed, Spirit-breathed vision, and identify bold experiments that we can test over the next two to three years,” she said.  

The idea of “becoming good ancestors” informs the attitude the bishops hope the participants will take.

“Psalm 78 tells us to tell the coming generation the mighty acts of God so that they would set their hope in God and not forget the works of the Lord. This isn't nostalgia—it's a charge,”  Rev. Grandon-Mayer said. “All of us are both heirs of the faith and ancestors in the making.”

At this annual conference, many spoke about wanting to expand ministries with youth and young adults.

“Our young people are watching us,” said Rev. Grandon-Mayer. “They are watching how we handle conflict, how we talk about people who differ from us, how we care for creation, how we confront racism and honor voices from the margins, and whether ‘love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously’ is simply a vision statement or an honest description of our life together.”

To be good ancestors means three things, she said: telling the truth about our history, our complicity in injustice, and God's faithfulness despite us; refusing to hoard power or privilege and creating space for new voices, and sowing seeds whose harvest we may never see, making decisions for the next fifty years, not just the next budget cycle.   

Mr. Williams called on conference members to support the work by praying for all the participants in the gathering, and for wisdom, humility, and courage. He further asked them to hope—"to dare to believe that God is not finished with The United Methodist Church” and to “trust that the Spirit who has led us through 240 years of Methodist witness is calling us into greater vitality.”

“When we return in November, we’ll be sharing what emerged from Calgary. But don't wait—start now having conversations in your local churches about what it means to love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in your context,” he urged.