General Superintendent Max Edwards & Judy
May 13, 2025 Please Plan NOW for General Conference 2026! The Evangelical Methodist Church began in a prayer meeting in Memphis, Tennessee. A notation from our published history reads: “The Evangelical Methodist Church came into being in 1946 in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. J.H. Hamblen was elected chairman of the meeting in Memphis and as the first General Superintendent at the organizational conference in November of that year. With a firm conviction that the gulf that separates conservative and liberal thought in the church is an ever-widening chasm which can never be healed, the Evangelical Methodist Church came into being to preserve the distinctive Biblical doctrines of primitive Methodism.” The EMC’s General Conference gathering will be held in Indianapolis in the summer of 2026, and will mark our 80th anniversary. I am so thankful for our founders, who led with vision and conviction! We are trusting that you will be making plans to attend, to celebrate this milestone with one another, and to be infused with energy to continue on for as long as the Lord tarries His imminent return.
SAVE THE DATE – July 21-24, 2026 For the remainder of 2025 and into early 2026, you’ll see this graphic (or something like it) in almost every formal communication from the HQ Office. We don’t want the date to slip up on anyone. Churches and pastors won’t be spending travel funds coming to regional “Journey” meetings in 2026 - - the solo gathering for the year will be our 34th General Conference, held at Indianapolis First Church of the Nazarene in July. The program will be amazing, and the fellowship times will be life-giving. There will be great presentations from a variety of speakers in the main sessions and in two breakout sessions. The plenary keynote speakers will be Dr. Carla Sunberg, one of the six General Superintendents of the Church of the Nazarene, which has over 20,000 churches around the world. You can read more about Dr. Sunberg by clicking HERE. Our other main speaker will be Rev. Karl Vaters, who has a deep passion and calling to help ‘small’ churches thrive. He's the author of five books on church leadership, including his newest, De-Sizing the Church: How Church Growth Became a Science, Then an Obsession, and What's Next. His other books include The Grasshopper Myth and Small Church Essentials. His ministry website can be accessed by clicking HERE.