Key points:
- United Methodist bishops heard an update on planning for next year’s Leadership Gathering in Canada.
- The meeting will not deal with legislation but aims to help church leaders discern the Holy Spirit’s guidance as the denomination starts anew.
- Bishops also are making plans to engage the whole denomination in preparing for the gathering through a survey to capture members’ hopes and concerns.
In planning next year’s Leadership Gathering, the denomination’s bishops “are building something unprecedented in United Methodist life.”
That’s how Horizon Texas Conference Bishop Ruben Saenz Jr. described the gathering of United Methodist lay and clergy leaders selected by the bishops. The international meeting, scheduled for Oct. 20-24, 2026, at Knox United Church in Calgary, Alberta, will have no decision-making authority.
“Why are we doing this?” Saenz explained. “This gathering is a sacred space — a space designed for us to imagine possibilities — not to make decisions.”
Saenz, the co-convener of the event’s design team as well as the recently elected incoming Council of Bishops president, gave an update on the gathering’s preparations Nov. 4 during the bishops’ online fall meeting.
Learn more
The Council of Bishops will share more information about the Leadership Gathering as planning continues here.
He emphasized that the Leadership Gathering is not a legislative body like General Conference, nor a place for conflict resolution. Instead, he described the gathering as a time “to listen deeply to where the Spirit is moving, to equip ourselves as leaders for the challenges and opportunities ahead, and to bring together voices from across our worldwide connection.”
The bishops are planning this different kind of United Methodist meeting as the international denomination emerges anew after years of infighting and church disaffiliations.
Today, The United Methodist Church — which still spans four continents — is a bit smaller but more unified. During the same Nov. 3-7 meeting where the bishops received Saenz’s update, they also announced the ratification of four amendments to the denomination’s constitution — which each passed with more than 91% of the vote. Chief among the changes approved was regionalization, a restructuring of the denomination that de-centers the U.S.
United Methodists around the globe also are embracing the denomination’s new vision statement unveiled earlier this year. The vision states: “The United Methodist Church forms disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.”
The Leadership Gathering is intended to help the denomination live into this new vision, current Council of Bishops President Tracy S. Malone said during her presidential address to her colleagues.
“This Leadership Gathering will invite participants to a time of prayerful conversation, shared visioning,” said Malone, who also leads the Indiana Conference. She added that it will be a space “where the Spirit of God can help us to gather innovation and imagine together how the church can lead faithfully and bear witness boldly in every part of the world.”
During his presentation, Saenz addressed multiple questions about the coming gathering.
Who is coming?
Saenz reported that the bishops now have 295 confirmed participants “representing the breadth of the global church.”
They include active bishops, the three retired bishops who serve as Council of Bishops officers, the top executives of the denomination’s 13 general agencies and three leaders from each of the denomination’s episcopal areas chosen by the bishop in consultation with the lay and clergy leaders in that area.
The total also includes 50 additional people selected by the Council of Bishops to include young people, theologians and others, including some retired bishops, who can bring diverse areas of expertise to the discussion.
Saenz said the names of all participants will be released in December. The design team is recommending capping the gathering’s total attendance at 325, including staff and observers. Saenz said the team hopes “to maintain the intimate and focused nature of our discernment work.”
How does this engage the wider church?
While the Leadership Gathering will have limited participation, the event’s design team is making plans to involve all United Methodists in discerning how the denomination moves forward.
Planning for Miracle Sunday
Bishops also heard about plans for “Miracle Sunday,” a one-time offering scheduled May 17 for the Endowment Fund for Theological Education in the Central Conferences. The endowment supports clergy education in the denomination’s eight regions in Africa, Europe and the Philippines.
Retired Bishop Patrick Streiff, the endowment fund’s board chair, told bishops Nov. 3 that at least 81 of the denomination’s 137 annual conferences already have committed to supporting the initiative.
The goal is for the roughly 30,000 United Methodist congregations around the world to engage in a complete six-week worship and small-group series centered around the denomination’s new vision. The series will culminate in Miracle Sunday, an effort to close the theological education gap between United Methodists in the U.S. and United Methodists in Africa, Europe and the Philippines. At present, only 5% of pastors in these regions hold a theological degree compared to over 70% in the U.S.
The ultimate goal is to establish a permanent endowment that can educate 500 pastors every year in Africa, Europe and the Philippines.
Streiff reported that the eight bishops leading the initiative had already committed a combined $121,000 to theological education in these regions.
The focus on the vision to love boldly, serve joyfully and lead courageously while preparing for the Miracle Sunday offering “has the potential to unite us,” Streiff said.
“It’s a movement that can really revitalize our church in its vision and future,” he said, “bringing fresh energy and purpose to our communities and our being part of a connectional church.”
In the lead-up to the event, the team plans to conduct a survey that aims to inform the gathering by capturing the hopes, concerns and wisdom of United Methodists worldwide.
To conduct the survey, the team is working with Wespath — the denomination’s retirement-benefits agency that already routinely surveys United Methodist clergy about their health and well-being. Wespath is currently testing to see if the agency can do the data-gathering and analysis of potentially millions of responses in multiple languages.
The goal is to survey all United Methodists around the globe. The design team hopes to deploy the survey early next year with Wespath completing its data analysis in the months ahead of the Leadership Gathering.
The design team also is working with United Methodist Communications to livestream an online panel on April 25, 2026. Plans call for the four-hour event to feature United Methodist leaders from the U.S., Philippines, Europe and Africa as well as Catholic and Protestant ecumenical partners.
Three webinars for the gathering’s invited participants also are planned in January, February and March. Each will focus on how the vision statement’s call to “love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously” connects back to the denomination’s mission and Wesleyan theology. Saenz said the design team is still finalizing details to determine whether the webinars will be recorded and shared with the wider church.
Why is the meeting in Canada?
Knox United Church, the host of the Leadership Gathering, is part of The United Church of Canada. The Canadian denomination, as a fellow member of the World Methodist Council, has strong ecumenical partnerships with The United Methodist Church. The bishops see this as an opportunity to strengthen those ties.
“The general secretary of the United Church of Canada has generously offered staff assistance, and Knox United Church volunteers are enthusiastically supporting our work,” Saenz said. “These ecumenical relationships exemplify the collaborative spirit we hope to foster throughout the gathering.”
The venue, he added, is also ideally suited to the event’s needs with space for observers and audio-visual capabilities.
Saenz said that the bishops plan to do what they can so all invited from Africa and the Philippines can obtain any required visas. But in the event some cannot obtain visas, United Methodist Communications is developing contingency plans to enable those invited who cannot attend in person to participate.
How is this funded?
Saenz also told the bishops that they are pursuing an aggressive fundraising strategy with the goal of raising at least $1.2 million for the Leadership Gathering. The bishops began developing a plan for the gathering after last year’s General Conference approved the 2025-2028 denominational budget, so there is no money allotted specifically for the event.
Instead, Saenz said, bishops and other design-team members are meeting with major donors, reaching out to large churches, engaging with United Methodist foundations and creating avenues for individual United Methodists to contribute small donations.
Saenz said speaker honorariums are budgeted at $8,000 for eight presenters. He added that the Episcopal Fund will cover the expenses of bishops attending but not their spouses. The Episcopal Fund, which General Conference approves, supports the work of bishops — including funding their travels for that work.
“The reality is that we’re asking for funds outside normal funding cycles,” Saenz said. “But despite this challenge, we’re building a budget as we raise funds — demonstrating flexibility and creative stewardship.”
What happens the day after?
Retired Bishop Charles Crutchfield expressed enthusiasm after Saenz’s report but was quick to ask the design-team co-convener what happens after the Leadership Gathering concludes.
Saenz said the gathering’s findings will be compiled into a report that he expects to be released to the wider church in January 2027.
“It will be a resource that the church can use to imagine, to love boldly, serve joyfully and lead courageously at the local level, annual conference level and also at the worldwide level,” he said.
Regionalization starts taking effect
Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
