June 10, 2025
General Superintendent
Max Edwards
In about 3 months, the General Council of the EMC will convene in its annual face-to-face meeting in Indianapolis. The Council is made up of the General Conference Officers, meaning the elected Superintendents and General Secretary/Treasurer, as well as the chairpersons of all the General Conference Boards, the Global Superintendents, and the Men’s and Women’s Auxiliary Presidents.
The Council is tasked with several functions, but the very first one listed in ¶608 of the EMC Discipline is this:
“To give direction to the church by presenting creative and practical programs to the General Conference for adoption, seeking to anticipate the future needs and continued growth of the church.”
This will most likely be the last full meeting of the Council before our 34 General Conference convenes in July of 2026. Because of that Council will be thinking deeply about any suggestions to be offered during the conference business sessions that would fulfill that function anticipate the future needs and continued growth of the church.”
To help in that regard, we would love to hear your opinions about a few things related to our future – specifically our Journey Meetings and General Conference Sessions, including the desired length and locations of our next set of Journey meetings , as well as how many officers should be elected to serve the USA Conference, and in what callings or positions.
In order to collect your thoughts and pass them on to the Council, we will be sending you two links later this week that will take you to short surveys, asking just a few questions about future Journey meetings, and the coming General Conference meeting in July of 2026.
The surveys won’t take long for you to complete. The Journey survey has just five questions, and the General Conference survey has just four. I know that your time is extremely valuable, but I’m asking that you please take the time to read the information in the surveys and give us your feedback through the questions. Your answers will help guide our thinking as to what course of action to consider, and what suggestions might be made to the delegates at General Conference to help move us forward.
The links to the surveys should be in your email inbox by Thursday morning. Thank you so much!!