TiL Pastoral Ordination- UMC

Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast. Thank you for joining us this evening. We are continuing in our series on pastoral ordination.

Tonight we have a special guest with us and he is going to share with us about the pastoral ordination process in the

United Methodist Church. Stick with us. Good evening, folks.

I'm Dan. This is Rob. As he said, we're interviewing our new friend up above us this evening from the

United Methodist Church. It's been interesting going through all these different denominations and seeing the different church polities and how they work together, how ordination works in different denominations.

So tonight we're kind of excited to see what the United Methodists have to say about things.

So, Jonathan, welcome to the podcast. If you would, start us off and just tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, where you're serving, what you're doing, how it looks, throw some titles, drop some names, you know, however it looks for you.

All right, great. Well, thank you. Thank you. I am Jonathan LeMaster Smith, although a senior citizen Sunday school class dubbed me

Dr. J because my name was too long for them to pronounce. And so I am Dr. J to even some of my students now.

I am a certified lay minister in the United Methodist Church and pastor of two churches in Vail, North Carolina, which is outside of both

Lincolnton and Hickory, depending on where you are. And they are Reap's Grove and Macedonia United Methodist Churches, two great churches.

And I'm also a professor of various things, including United Methodist Studies, Christian education, and rural ministry.

And I do that mainly right now for Kairos University, which is a traditionally

North American Baptist, but it has several different denominations from across the world. And I live in Hildebrand, North Carolina, which if you've seen the

Hunger Games movies, it is district 12 of the Hunger Games. Those mill villages they live in are across the interstate from me.

Oh, that's interesting. The closest thing I have to a TV story is they shot,

I forget what show it was, in Gastonia. We had somebody try to pass off one of those fake hundred dollar bills that a

Taco Bell is working with. Oh, wow. They got the guy. Our cashier took the money and so we were in trouble.

But it was interesting. I guess, Rob, why don't you start us off asking some questions from the list.

I'll start off with, you know, what you call my baby. I ask this question differently every time we have the podcast.

And really, I think I was trying to think about this today. Really, the reason why

I think that I want to ask this question is because we get in a tizzy when we have theological differences with somebody else and we don't know how to handle disagreements.

And so somebody will claim this is biblical or how I believe is the biblical view.

And though you're quoting the same verse, you have a different interpretation. Your view is not the biblical view and vice versa.

And you'll say the same thing to me. And then sometimes we will claim something to be biblical and really want to hold people to the line on that biblical view when really it's more of a description in the

Bible and not prescriptive. With that being said, I state all that just so that people can, hopefully we can be an example of people who can relax and say, hey, look, we want to take some time, be patient, and examine things.

In the heart of that, when it comes to pastoral ordination, do you find it to be biblical as something that we should hold to and practice?

Is it more just a descriptive thing? How do you view pastoral ordination?

So for me, I can answer both what my denomination says and then what I say about that.

So I'll start with my denomination. My denomination does claim it to be biblical. And we actually cite in our

Book of Discipline that we call it an ordination and an apostolic ministry.

And we reference Acts 6, especially the calling together and assigning people to particular tasks and ministry and setting them apart for that.

And then we'll also go to Ephesians 4 and the different gifts and ministries that are given to all persons.

As the United Methodist Church kind of sort of roots itself in that sort of apostolic tradition going back to the

Church of England, back to the Roman Catholic Church, in that vein. And we rooted in the naming of this.

And in fact, we lift up the two orders of clergy that get mentioned quite a bit in the Book of Acts, the

Elder and the Deacon, as our two main orders of clergy. Now, for me,

I root it. For me, it is biblical. I think it takes on different forms. I lean towards what

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, would call prudential means of grace or prudential forms of ministry.

As needed, different forms of set -apart ministry can rise up as it happens throughout Scripture.

Sometimes there are prophets, sometimes priests, sometimes pastor, have more pastoral figures that emerge in ministry.

So I think we are to carry that further with us, but it may look different depending upon the needs of God's people at the time as part of that.

That's interesting. Can you talk about that just a little bit more?

Maybe flesh it out just a fuzz more. It was interesting. I was liking what you were saying. Which part?

I mean, I can flesh out just the different forms of ministry for different times. Yeah, yeah.

Something like that. So I like the idea of priesting.

One of the Methodist ideas is preaching Christ in all his offices and that Christ is a priest, prophet, and pastor or that sort of reality.

And so that we need to be in ministry in different ways for different seasons as part of that.

So that we should, as denominations, as Christians, lift up different forms of ministry at different times.

Be that a teaching ministry, a caring ministry, a health ministry, and label leaders for that as part of that.

Now, in terms of ordination, we tend to focus primarily on the leaders of the church as part of that and what those leaders of the church might look like.

Be that elders and pastors, be that even youth ministers and certifying or licensing them, those sort of things.

Now, one thing we also have a problem with as denominations is often we lean on what society expects, not what is actually needed by God's kingdom as part of that.

So we'll start expecting certain things out of our pastors. So we only pick certain pastors that fit maybe a socioeconomic class.

The United Methodist Church had a desire to have very educated pastors at one point. They wanted to send their pastors to the places like Harvard and Princeton and eventually then we get things like Duke and Vanderbilt emerging to help deal with that within our denomination as part of that.

I'm most familiar with folks who are pastoring in United Methodist Church attending a

Duke University. Is that a requirement to be a pastor in the United Methodist Church is that you attend one of these

Methodist universities? So it's complicated. There are multiple paths, but to be an ordained elder or an ordained deacon, there are paths that we expect seminary education in some form out of people that could be one from one of our 13

United Methodist seminaries and that includes places like Duke, Emory, Boston University, Southern Methodist, or it could be at an approved seminary within our denominational approving body called the

University Senate that approves seminaries to be for pastors to attend. Yeah, I like hearing from all these different denominations and their emphasis on training and that causes me to pause and reflect on my own denomination and you know, the

Baptist Church is more autonomous. And so therefore there's probably a desire in all

Baptist churches for their pastor to have education.

However, you get to more of these rural churches and they can't afford.

Oh, exactly. Education in our denomination seems to be more about how much money you can make, the size of the church that you can be hired at and the money that you can make and the rural churches just can't afford.

That's not just your denomination. That's not just your denomination. We do have churches that pay quite a bit more than others.

But as what you were saying and also reflecting on the Presbyterian Church and some of the other denominations that we listen to, there's this more unified emphasis on education.

Yeah, I think we as Baptists, we would emphasize it but not as uniformly.

Yes, there's not as much of an expectation or demand that you have a particular master's degree from a particular university, that sort of thing.

Right. And it's not necessary, but it's the emphasis on training.

Yes. And you don't have to get that from a university with a master's degree. You can get that through discipleship and being underneath somebody else.

I believe in that. However, I love the emphasis on training.

Oh, and absolutely. And I think some denominations are getting it right with having a conference or convention or association trainings that train their pastors.

So if they can't afford to go to one of the major universities, they can still get the training that will help them be in ministry for where they are.

Yeah, our denomination, we have a Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary up in Pittsburgh.

Yeah, if you need more training or a class or some lectures, they'll get you right in there and make sure that you've got what you need to succeed.

Good stuff. So in the United Methodist Church, well, first biblically, do you see a biblical requirement that someone be ordained in order to be a pastor or elder in a church?

In other words, on the flip side, could someone who is not ordained, biblically speaking, hold that office in the church?

Or should they? I guess could and should may be two different things. That's an interesting question because I am not ordained.

I am certified in our denomination versus ordained because we have different levels. But if we're thinking biblically, that is set apart by a group of people to do the work of God, then yes,

I think there needs to be somebody that identifies a person as a person set apart for ministry.

Now, for us, that may be depending on where it's at, different levels within our denomination that do that.

Now, to be on the higher levels, you need a larger body to affirm you through a series of processes.

But yes, I think there is a biblical expectation that someone be called to ministry and that ministry be identified by another body within our denomination, whether that or in any denomination, really.

I think I feel like, I mean, there are people I think who are called but don't have a church. They just kind of wander the kind of circuit ride and do that pulpit supply sort of thing.

But it's that sort of sense of if you are called to ministry, there needs to be other people identifying those gifts and those fruits coming from you.

Right. No, the Lone Ranger pastor. Yes. All right.

So I'm going to jump out of order, Rob, because I think we should ask one out of order and then

I'll let you jump back in because I think it would be helpful as we move forward.

Can you describe the church polity? The structure of the

United Methodist Church? So that when we get into talking about the ordination processes, certifying processes, we can have some framework to go on as far as those structures go.

So just kind of describe the polity and structure of the United Methodist Church as best you can.

Remember, we have to go to bed sometime tonight. Well, this is my job. So I teach full semester -long courses on it.

So I'm happy to share.

So the United Methodist Church is what we call a connectional system. It's a sort of an idea that we made up that we are interconnected bodies with no real top or bottom as opposed to, say, a more hierarchical structure like the

Roman Catholic Church or more autonomous structure like, say, the Southern Baptist Church that has loose associations and conventions as part of that.

And when we became a denomination, we were the Methodist Episcopal Church in North America, but every denomination changes their names 30 times over the course of the existence of the

United States. And we decided we wanted to base our structure on the

United States government. At one point, John Wesley was trying to send us over rules to follow, and he was trying to set himself up as a pope, self -appointed pope, within our sort of denomination.

And our newly created bishops said no, and they created a democratic process for discerning what the future of the

Methodist Episcopal Church in North America is. And so with that, we get, out of necessity, first a general conference that is the governing body for the entire denomination.

That sets the Book of Discipline for us. It meets usually every four years, and our next one that was supposed to meet in 2020, but COVID and global travel and wars and all of that set us back, is meeting in Charlotte in April.

So that is our next global gathering of that. And we send laypeople and clergy, ordained clergy from around the world, go to that to help decide the future of the denomination every four years as part of that.

The general conference has set the structure for other processes. We actually have, within our denomination, general conference and jurisdictional conferences, the next one.

And that is, and jurisdictional conferences in the U .S., central conferences outside the U .S., are bodies that are regional.

And these bodies mainly elect our bishops and appoint people to general agencies, which are the

Board of Discipleship, Board of Missions, those sort of things that most denominations have some sort of idea around.

Are those geographical in nature? Are they linked by some other sort of...

Well, they are now geographic in nature. There was one that was created in 1939 that was race -related, and we decided to get rid of that one because we wanted to desegregate our denomination as part of that.

We created that, it was intentionally designed to be racist because when the churches re -merged in the 1930s, certain people refused to be part of it if they had to, the possibility of having an

African -American pastor serving in their conference as part of that. That has since been dissolved. And they are only, and we have in our discipline, the jurisdictional and central conference can only be regionally based, geographically based.

They cannot be any other sort of thing. Now, there has been discussions of affinity -based conferencing, but we have not gotten to have a meeting since 2016.

Yeah, the ACNA, the Anglicans, have affinity dioceses.

So that's kind of what spurred on that question. I heard some of them talking about that not too long ago. Yes, and I will say then from there, we get into the annual conferences.

So the annual conference is what we call the basic unit of the church. The annual conferences were created to be the bodies that start and close churches, that ordain clergy, that move clergy around as part of their ministry.

So where most denominations say the church is the basic body of the local church is the basic body of it, we take it a step up to that regional body.

We sit here in North Carolina, the western part, we are in the Western North Carolina conference. Since you are in upstate

New York, you're probably in the upper New York annual conference, regionally, as part of that. And this body is the one in which we send people to our district committees and boards of ministry in order to discern whether or not they are called to ministry and then to ordain and appoint them as part of that.

That meets, like it says, annually. So we meet every year. Mine meets at Lake Junaluska up in Waynesville every year as part of this.

And that is where each year, every pastor could be reappointed each year by the bishop and the cabinet of the bishop, which are the district superintendents in the area.

So below, and stop me with any questions, because we are a complex system as part of this.

But then we have the districts, which are sort of... Does that happen very often? I mean, obviously, you'd have certain reappointment.

Obviously, you'd have certain situations where it may be preferable or you may need to. Yes. But does it happen often?

It used to be mandatory every four years, the pastor had to do. We have since changed that to needs -based and context -based realities of that.

So some pastors may be at an appointment one year, some may be there 20 years. We've gotten much more flexible with that.

Now, if it's... And each year the church gets to say, we want to keep the pastor each year, the pastor gets to say, I want to stay there.

But then again, the bishop and the cabinet could say, even if both are in agreement, I need this pastor to go here now as part of that.

But yes, it doesn't happen nearly as often. Smaller, more rural churches tend to have more turnover than, say, more stable, larger churches, say a county seat church or a larger church like one of our big ones is

Myers Park United Methodist in Charlotte, huge church, their pastor's been there. Our largest denominationally is the

Church of the Resurrection of Leawood, Kansas. And I think that's 40 ,000 members. And he's been there since its inception,

I believe, or very early before that. His name is Adam Hamilton. He gets floated around.

I think he did the National Prayer Breakfast one year as part of that. And then we have districts, which are sort of sub -annual conferences that are really just regional -based bodies because our conferences are huge, like some of our annual conferences are the states of Montana, Wyoming, and parts of Colorado.

And then other ones are, you know, Western North Carolina, there's a lot more Methodists and a lot more people in this state as part of that.

So those districts are set up with district superintendents, which are essentially deputy bishops. They are appointed by the bishop to serve.

They are always elders in full connection in our denomination. And that regional gathers for licensing of local pastors because we have a local pastor level below the ordination level, as well as approving candidates for ministry from local churches to go before the conference as part of that.

And then we get down to the local church level as part of that. And the local church is, of course, maybe in the

United Methodist Church, we sometimes put two, three, four, twenty -five churches together as part of the reality we call it a charge or a circuit.

That's part of that. So that's where we get down to. That's the basic structure. On the top upper level, we have the

Council of Bishops is the executive branch. The General Conference is legislative and we do have a judicial branch called the

Judicial Council. Who makes up the judicial branch? They just rotate in different?

So they are appointed by General Conference and there are always nine people and sometimes it's five clergy and four laity and sometimes it's five laity and four clergy, depending upon the cycle.

With alternates in case of sickness and those sort of things. Sure. Well, since we're on this topic, if you don't mind, if you would like to continue that conversation and tell us more about the more the local level, who is ordained, who's not ordained, the different levels of licensing that we were talking about earlier.

Explain to us what's going on there on a local level. All right, so I'll start at the top, the ordination level.

So we have in our denomination deacons. Traditionally deacons were actually in the United Methodist Church.

You were ordained deacon and then you were ordained elder. That's because we grew out of the Anglican tradition. So you were ordained deacon for a provisional period.

If you can show fruits of ministry, you would then approve to be an elder in full connection. That means you had full clergy rights within our denomination.

In 1996, we split it up to be deacons and elders as equal clergy within our conference, within our denomination.

Elders are called to word, service, sacrament, and order, and deacons are called to word, service, compassion, and justice as part of that.

The role of the deacon is to be a specialized ministry that is focused on bridging the gap between the church and the world.

So we have deacons in our denomination who are appointed. Occasionally they're appointed as the head pastor of a church, but they're only allowed to do that for six years.

Mostly it's you're going to be a specialized ministry, the minister of music, the minister of youth and children, minister of missions as part of that.

Or you can be appointed in outside the church and you have people who are lawyers and social workers, teachers, missionaries, those sort of things that go about doing that and yet serve also in relationship to the church.

Now the elder is the more traditional pastoral looking figure of the denomination.

That's the person who's up front preaching most of the time, doing communion, doing baptisms, that sort of reality.

But in many of our churches, we have the level of licensed local pastor, and we can get into the educational requirements of all of these too.

The licensed local pastor is a local preacher that is licensed to do sacraments only in their congregation and to do leadership only within their congregation.

So they can do baptisms and communion within their congregation or for members of their congregation, as well as weddings.

That's the other third one they can do as part of that. And they only usually move around within the district unless they request to move to another district as part of that.

They have a lower, it's sad, but the elders and deacons have a minimum salary and then the local pastors have a lower minimum salary as part of that.

And then I'm a certified lay minister, which I'm a lay person, so I have no sacramental rights.

So I have a clergy who will bless my elements for communion for me ahead of time. And I have, if I need a baptism,

I bring in another clergy person as part of that to assist with that because of the requirements within our denomination to do that.

The reason I'm a certified lay minister and not clergy is because I've never felt called to ordination, but I have felt called to be in ministry as a lay person.

And it just happens that I make sense in this situation as part of that. I have no idea how long

I'll be here. It's been a year, almost two years now since I've been here as part of that, but I make sense in this space and I'm able to connect with clergy to do the other parts for me because we are intentionally connectional.

So if I ask a clergy person to bless my communion elements for me, they essentially have to as part of that.

I know for myself, so if I'm thinking that there's probably many other people going to be thinking, why the complexity?

And then why does he have to call in someone else to bless the

Lord's Supper or come and do a baptism? Why can't he do it himself? But in a positive light,

I'm thinking to myself, you know, they are safeguarding those positions.

They are protecting their congregation. You can't just be any person off the street to administer those things.

So there is some, with the complexity, it sounds like there's some responsibility there.

There's some protection there. There's some care given to who holds these positions.

And of course, it's for the glory of God and for the service of the congregation. But that part

I can really appreciate. It would be too long to ask the other part of that question.

How do you differ from the other denominations or other churches in your process? That would just take too long.

So what was the question I was going to ask? I'll come back to it later. What are some of the distinctive in the

United Methodist Church that make it unique from other associations? So that's kind of a similar question.

So what are some of the ones that float to the top for you that make the

Methodist Church distinctive or different than the other denominations that maybe you appreciate? I think for me, the distinctiveness is our focus on connectionalism, that there is no real top.

There is no real body. Each rights are reserved for different levels of the church in different ways. So we all have to be functioning.

And I consider connectionalism the process in which we are moved. Of course, people, pastors being reappointed, people going to service in different places.

Money, because of course money moves back and forth. That's a biblical concept. Money moves between churches, that sort of thing.

And then, of course, resources. But then my final thing is, it helps that we are connected to the Holy Spirit, of course, that we are connected as a church.

And we acknowledge sort of that. We may be different. I'm very different. My denominate, my congregations are very different than say a

West Coast congregation, the United Methodist Church, an African congregation, a Norwegian congregation. But we have sort of this similar connectional structure.

And we root it in sort of the historical Methodist principles of grace and our particular understanding of grace, as well as our understanding of John Wesley's rules for ministry, particularly our rules for our societies, is what we call them.

The do no harm, do good, and attend upon all the ordinances of God as the core of that, all of which is rooted in Scripture, is what we say about our work.

But I think that connectional reality of saying that, and also the accountability structure that we have in place, that to be, especially with an ordination, to be ordained, you go before many different bodies who you have to then show that you have produced fruit of ministry and that you are called.

And so that you move from the local church to the district, to the conference, to the educating bodies, depending on whether you do a course of study for licensed local pastors, and some elders do that, or a

Master of Divinity type program as part of that. And then it goes all the way up to the annual conference.

The clergy of the annual conference decide whether or not someone is to be ordained. The clergy decide who gets to join their ranks as part of that.

And I think that's a unique thing. And all the clergy in the area and in the conference vote on that.

All the ordained clergy get to vote on that. Is there a questioning process, a theological questioning process, a character evaluation?

Absolutely. We have a long process. We actually have, I believe, close to 20 questions you have to answer in our

Book of Discipline that shows, for the first round, because you become provisional first, and then you have to do a three -year residency period to prove competency and fruits of ministry before you are fully ordained.

And there is a questioning process. There's both a written, as well as a, you have to turn in a sermon or a creative proclamation if you don't plan on being a preaching pastor.

And you have to also turn in fruitfulness and ministry type projects, as well as letters of recommendation, psychological evaluations, those sort of things.

And then you go before a board that asks you theological questions, both on the district level and the conference level. And then there are finally questions at annual conference.

They're historic that John Wesley expected people to answer, as part of that. So, I guess we came to that part where maybe we could walk through that process.

Say you had somebody who is in the church, and they say, you know, I feel called to be an elder in the church.

I'd like to go down the road towards ordination. Just starting from square one, what would be the practical, like chronological steps that they would take to go on that journey?

All right. Which I don't even think that's on the paper, but hey. I had already written it out for myself.

Yes, so we have the next 45 minutes to go over this process. Absolutely. Yeah. I'll have to be there until 7 .30

tomorrow. Oh, gosh. Yeah, I don't have anything until 11 .30 tomorrow morning. So that's good. So that is what we have is, if you feel called to ministry, you are to approach the pastor of your church as part of that.

And to the pastor of the church, you have conversations about what that might look like. And then we have recommendations that pastors can use to talk with their people.

And then if that person is feeling led to ministry, we have what we call a discerning your call process or an inquiring candidate process.

I like the one that's more discerning your call, less sounds like a law degree and more like a ministry process.

The discerning your call process, which we provide a one or two day depending on your annual conference.

There's usually a gathering of people who are inquiring in ministry as part of that. And they go and they have what we call our director, what's actually our associate director of ministerial services.

And they have people to present on the different orders of ministry and different possibilities within ministry.

And that is done for the annual conference. And then you are assigned to a candidacy group in which you go through over the course of six months or a year a process and other places do it differently.

You may have a one -on -one mentor, but it's essentially a mentoring process to go through the expectations of the ministry process within the denomination, as well as doing gifts analysis, doing leadership expectations, doing, you know, understanding the financial realities of being in ministry, all of this, both the practical and spiritual realities of that.

And at the end of that, if you are still considering going on, you can go a few different ways. The first would be to, if you're considering being ordained as an elder or a deacon, these have the same, these have parallel paths within that you would then say,

I'm interested in becoming an elder or a deacon. And then you begin the education process, which is depending on what you're doing, either a master of divinity or a master's degree in a specific field with what we call the basic graduate theological studies, especially this is for deacons who may not be serving in a church, but maybe serving as a teacher at something.

But we have these educational requirements as part of that. Once you get towards the end of that, and you are doing well, we require a certain

GPA and certain courses that you have to take as part of that, denominational studies being one of those, we require evangelism missions and evangelism missions,

Bible worship preaching, though the ones you would really want to make sure your clergy have, you then would begin the provisional process where you would go before the district committee on ministry to, and hopefully you have developed a relationship with the district committee on ministry because they do want certain,

I'm going to back up, I skipped a step. You then have to go before your, after you go before that discerning my call and the mentors approve you, you then have to go before the district committee on ministry to be certified as a candidate for ministry.

And that district committee asked you to write a paper and interviews you and they vote on that. And then they can send you forward to the education process.

Now let's go back to the education process. You're done with that, almost done with that. We begin what is called the provisional process in which there are papers, sermons, all of this paperwork to turn in.

You go back before the district committee and then back, then after that, if they approve you, you go to the board of ordained ministry, which is the regional body in which people will come in and ask you the theological, the ministry and the practical questions of life.

Once you are at that point, if they, they can either approve you or defer you. If they defer you, they will usually tell you what you have to do to make it up, to figure out what's next for you.

If they approve you, you then go before the annual conference in June. You have to stand up on stage in front of a thousand people.

And depending on what set up the bishop will hold his hand over your head or her hand over your head and do that and say, do you approve this person?

And they vote yes. And then they are, there's a worship service as part of that, where they are commissioned as provisional members of the annual conference.

Then you go before what we call the residency and ministry process in which you are assigned another mentor to work with you in that two to three year period where you grow in ministry.

And then after that, you can then go to before the ordination process in which you go before your board of ordained ministry again, but this time having shown fruit in your ministry, writing a different set of papers, providing different sermons and projects.

And then again, they can defer you or pass you. And if you pass, you then go before the ordaining body of the annual conference to be ordained.

And if they, you say, yes, you're now ordained. And that if you're ordained as an elder, you are guaranteed a church unless you fall out of good standing within our denomination as part of that.

And if you are a deacon, you have support, but you are in charge with finding your own appointment. After that, there is, you are guaranteed for life to the point of retirement to be in clergy.

Well, I just got really comfortable where I am in the Southern Baptist Church when you said GPA. Yeah, yeah.

I would. So here's another one that we don't have on the list. Say I was ordained with my denomination and now all of a sudden you've convinced me of Provenient Grace and the goodness of class meetings and all the other good

Methodist stuff. And I would like to transfer my credentials to the United Methodist Church.

How would that look? Well, we do have, because we're Methodist, we have a method for that.

You are interested in converting to becoming over. So one of the things, we have options for that.

You can be serving in our denomination on loan from another denomination. That is one option. So you can continue to keep your credentials in your denomination if it is an approved denomination within that, and you have to then begin an educational process to stay within that.

Or, which is basically having your orders of ministry from another faith community recognized in ours as part of that.

Or you can transfer yourself to our, transfer your ordination to our denomination as part of that.

And you then become a United Methodist pastor and forfeit your previous ordination as part of that.

The process for that is an educational process. Again, you have to get especially United Methodist history, doctrine, and polity is what we call them as part of that.

And that you will then, just like other elders, go before our board of ordained ministry to be approved to do that as part of that.

So we have a process for that. Different denominations have different levels. If you're transferring over from one of the

Wesleyan Methodist family denominations, it's a lot easier. Nazarene, AME, Wesleyan, any of that.

If you're coming from a Reformed or a Baptist setting, it's going to be different. It's going to have more requirements and those sort of things.

I jotted down two extra questions myself, just listening to Jonathan tell us more about it.

So that first question, you were talking about the process and what they look for in these folks who were desiring the offices.

You said they look for fruits. So what are they looking for as far as fruits when they begin to serve and they present fruits?

What fruits are they looking for? So it is a mix. Sometimes they're looking for maybe numeric growth in a ministry, but they're mainly looking for discipleship growth among the communities that you are serving.

Are you showing the fruits of ministry by, it may be, of course, professions of faith as part of that, people coming to the

Lord because of your presence in that community, but it may also be the beginning of new missions out into the community.

It may be people growing in their faith as part of this and saying,

I understand that they have a deeper passion for that, passion for the scriptures, the passion for serving in their church and in their community.

It's subjective. You have to get this many professions of faith and this many people going to Bible study and this many people on Sunday morning.

It's much more subjective and you have to be able to provide a narrative approach to this in which you incorporate that into your faith story as well as the story of God's history because we are very history oriented denomination that we see ourselves as part of the continuing story of the faith.

So how does this fit in with the rest of the story as part of that? All right.

And I asked this next question based on you already bringing these folks out.

And so I'm asking this out of my ignorance, which is why we have an expert on here. These other churches, the

Wesleyan church, the Nazarene church that you mentioned, the more African -American church, the

Amazon church. So are you guys cousins, brothers, step brothers and sisters?

What's the relationship with those churches? Since I teach the history, I can tell you and I can almost give you the years where most of them broke off as part of that.

So we all will hail back, even some of the Pentecostal traditions will hail back to John Wesley in the 1700s in England and the

Methodist movement that blended pietism with works of justice and mercy and mission in the world, in which he suggested that we actually begin to do evangelism again and begin to do works of caring for the community again as part of that.

And when the American Revolution hit, most of the Church of England fled, but there were

Methodists here. And John Wesley worked with Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury. So you've heard of Asbury Theological Seminary, Asbury University, those sort of things.

That was one of our first bishops as part of that.

One interesting fact, he didn't have a degree. He wasn't ordained before he became that. He was 19 as a pastor riding around preaching, doing that on the back of a horse to start with.

But he and Thomas Coke, you've heard of the Methodist publishing house, Cokesbury. That's where that comes from.

He was that we formed the Methodist Episcopal Church in North America in 1784.

That is the beginning of that. There are a few other breakaway Methodist movements, but they don't have the traction that we have.

In 1787, the AME Church or the African Methodist Episcopal Church breaks off. Richard Allen, the founder of that church, is licensed to preach at the very first Methodist Episcopal Church conference in 1784, which meets starting on Christmas.

We call it the Christmas conference as part of that. Then we have the

AME Zion Church will break off shortly after that within the next 10 years. The AME Church breaks off in Philadelphia.

AME Zion breaks off in New York and form their own denominations. We have then in the 1800s, the

American Methodist, the Methodist Episcopal Church in North America runs into the issue of slavery because we are supposed to be an anti -slavery church as part of that.

No one should be owning slaves. We should be working for the liberation of slaves, except slave owners could write bigger checks to the churches as part of that.

Human need for money wins out sometimes as part of this, but there are disagreements within that.

Then we have churches breaking off for different reasons. There is the Republican Methodist Church that will break off first, which is a does not want bishops.

They have eventually joined the more reformed congregational movements, so they're no longer in existence.

Then in the Protestant Methodist Church will break off and they are going to be much more individualized, but they break off for issues of slavery and episcopal overreach, bishop overreach is what we call that.

In the 1830s, the Wesleyan Methodist Church breaks off from us over the issues of slavery and holiness as part of that.

That is now today the Wesleyan Church, which when it merged with Pilgrim Holiness dropped the Methodist from its name.

It's a blended denomination of that. That one has broken off then. Then, of course, in 1844, we have the big split where we have the

Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church South breaking off. Along the same time, the Southern Baptist Church splits, the

Presbyterian Church splits, all those denominations are splitting within those 10, 15 years before the

Civil War. The CME Church will then break off in the 1860s during the

Civil War when the Methodist Episcopal Church South basically tells all of its black churches get out as part of that.

They form their own denomination in that. Following that, you have the Nazarene Church breaking off.

I don't remember if it's directly from us or from a break off of us as part of that. You have the Pentecostal movements breaking off in the late 1800s, early 1900s, especially on the

Azusa Street, Topeka type movements that are happening. Those are the main

Methodist Wesleyan traditions that are broken off. Protestant Methodist Church, Methodist Episcopal Church, South and North come back together in the 1930s, become the

Methodist Church. Then we merge with the Evangelical United Brethren, which is a German pietist, essentially almost identical type denomination to us in 1968, making us the

United Methodist Church. Then in 2022, the Global Methodist Church breaks off from us as part of that taking several churches from across the denomination to form this new denomination as part of that.

They're convening General Conference in September in Costa Rica. While I'm glad that ours is local,

I'm jealous that theirs is in Costa Rica. Where do the

Free Methodists fit into this? They break off prior to the

Civil War as well. They are a holiness movement encouraged by Phoebe Palmer and the

Mother of Holiness Movement and that sort of work. They break off from the same way, which is interesting because they don't get rid of bishops or anything.

It's more free. Oh, wait, I'm wrong. They break off after the Civil War. The reason they're called

Free Methodists is because they don't pay for their seats in church. That's right. Okay, because the Methodist Episcopal Church decides to start getting gentrified.

We are mostly up until the Civil War, these little country churches like I'm sitting in now, small, maybe have a sanctuary, maybe a fellowship hall, some classrooms at most.

The pastors are riding around 16 of those. We decided we wanted to be like the fancy downtown

New England churches, Episcopal, Presbyterian, the mainline Presbyterians, the

Lutherans, and we wanted the Gothic -style churches. We wanted the highly educated pastors. That's when we start forming

Boston University School of Theology, Garrett Biblical Institute, those sort of things because we want our pastors to be educated and to bring in wealthier people to part of that.

They will break off from that because they don't think you should have to pay for a seat. There are still United Methodist Church to this day that have keys to their pews.

It's a family key situation as part of that. I've seen some of those churches have started growing.

They can't find the keys to some of those pews and they're not sure what to do because it's also in the National Historic Registry.

It's like how do we continue to grow as a church but maintain our historicity of this beauty that we have and all of that stuff.

Yes. That is fascinating. I appreciate you going through all that with us. Probably not everybody is as fascinated as I am with that history but I appreciate it.

So I thank you very much. Let me ask this next question.

I think despite all the splits that you talked about during the history, when you were describing the process of ordination,

I think you would describe most of that and I'm not going to speak for you but the standard that you guys set seems like you would consider those strengths.

Do you see, in your opinion, are there any weaknesses, anything that you think the

United Methodist Church could shore up in this process? I think it takes too long.

I think our process from start to finish can take sometimes at minimum, if you're getting a three -year degree plus that one -year process plus the two to three years, it could be a six years, six, seven years minimum.

I know people it's taken 10, 20 years to get through that process as part of that. Now, they may be serving in a church as a licensed local pastor but not have all the same authorities because they're sort of a lower level pastor as part of that but I think it's too long mainly and I think we are getting better at this because we are making education more accessible and affordable but not everybody can drop what they're doing in their life and move to a

Durham, a Chicago, a Boston to go to school as part of that. And the schools, our schools tend, the

United Methodist schools particularly tend to be very expensive. I mean they're the Dukes and the Emory's, they're these private institutions that are sort of big steeple institutions as part of that.

So it's working to make it more accessible in education and create alternative processes for that is what

I think is necessary. I also think hindrances to the process is it's still a, it's of course still, it's people driven so it's going to be subjective and people tend to want to ordain people who think like them a lot of the times who are, who fit into that mold with them as part of that.

So we tend to ordain the people who went to the school that we went to or who have a preaching style similar to what we have or have a understanding of heaven and hell that's very close to us versus interesting and different understandings of things that while different from us can still meet within the basic credentials of do you believe

Jesus Christ is the savior of the world and his self -ethic work and the scriptures the word of God those sort of things if we can stay within that and then begin to do more other things and we do that to an extent but it's much more regionalized.

The South is going to be much more traditional feeling versus say West Coast Norwegian Norway United Methodist going to look very different than the

Democratic Republic of the Congo's annual conference as part of that but it's still very regionalized.

We're trying to be contextual but we're contextual here is even interesting because when someone says they're called to certain kinds of ministry they're like well but if you're not called one of the thing one of the questions that has come up is when we ordain someone should we expect them to be able to church serve in every church in our conference should we appoint them there or should we say that they are very that some people are called to particular context be that rural urban church plants church renewal those sort of things so that's one of the things we have we're having that debate now we're actually at our 2024 meeting we're going we're presenting a new theology of ministry to try to help with that so what would some of your advice be to to someone who is thinking about pursuant thing but they've heard all of this said you know 10 to 20 years is something

I'm willing to get to go on. Yeah what what advice would you give to them obviously besides be patient I think for me it's going to be solidly discern your call do that work of discernment when you were offered discernment with your pastor with your church committee with the discerning process with the education process explore who

God is really calling you to be in ministry and how does that fit in with the faith story that you have how does that fit in with scripture how does that fit in with our historical tradition as Methodists as part of that or whatever tradition you're part of it's going to be that you need to know do you match with the theology and history of this denomination as part of that and take the time to really do that don't rush the process

I think that's one of those things I tend to work and understand it as in God's time it'll work out if you're really called to do this as part of that and I think also get multiple perspectives don't just trust your pastor is not the only one who's a pastor as part of that and I know that we know our denomination ordains women and women serve in churches but I know many people who've never had seen a woman preach before and they get to a place where they start seeing women preaching becomes this different thing for them as part of that and to explore that and that sort of thing so get experience go to different churches go to different parts of the country and explore within that it's like just like in any of our churches you know don't just skip over the hymns we never sing read those hymns to that sort of thing and our hymnals and churches are worship songs what are who are we learn who you are who we are and how you fit within that and also don't for me it's also don't assume that the path you have laid out in your mind is what's going to actually happen because it didn't happen for me so that was

I don't think it happens for anybody I didn't expect to be serving in two little churches I expect to be a full -time professor but I'm doing this co -vocational work that I think is is fabulous but that's not the plan

I had laid out I was going to go to school get a BA and MDiv and be an elder in the denomination but I trusted and let

God lead me I think that's good advice that's good encouragement

I appreciate that and we'll we'll go ahead and start to wrap things up and I appreciate you so much taking time out we finally were able to get together and have this thing and so I thank you for taking time and sharing with us your process personally and the denominations process and and all your insight your history

I found it fascinating so I really appreciate it and how we always in our podcast is with the gospel and with prayer so we want people to come to saving knowledge of our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ so if you'll take just a moment and share the gospel of Jesus Christ then if you'll pray after that and then

I'll close this out all right so I think the way I like to talk about the gospel is since we're in my denomination does the season of Lent but I like to jump ahead sometimes at the end of the gospel of Mark the reality is at the 16th chapter the women go there and they hear the word from the person of the tomb that Jesus is risen but not there to go tell

Peter and they run away and don't tell anybody and yet we have a church today we know that God can overcome our human frailty our human fear our human misinterpretations to continue to spread the kingdom even when we slip up when even we fail and it's a blessing to be a part of that knowing that if I fail

God will still prevail as part of that all right let's pray dear

Heavenly Father thank you for the time that we had together thank you for looking into this denomination and and how how things are done over there we pray for a blessing upon them that you would have your way among them and that you would continue to grow your church in Christ's name we pray

Amen Amen again again thank you Jonathan thank you everybody for watching we really appreciate you thank you for your support hit the like share and leave us a comment let us know that you watched and and if you have any questions leave them on the comments too and we'll try to touch base with you and answer those questions also don't forget at the end of April in Knoxville Tennessee we're going to have our second laborers conference go to the laborers conference .com

check out the hotels register for the conference we would love to hang out with you and fellowship with you at the conference is going to be on the

Holy Spirit and how he empowers his church. So with that being said remember that Jesus is

King go live in the victory of Christ go speak with the authority of Christ and continue to go share the gospel of Christ.