Mike Schafer & Lamar Oliver: Welcome to Across the Globe, the podcast where we tell stories of what's happening around the globe and the Global Methodist Church as we seek to spread scriptural holiness across the gro across the globe and make disciples of Jesus Christ. We're excited that you've joined us today. And I'm Mike Schaefer, the Connectional Operations Officer for the GMC. And today, ⁓ well, a huge part of my life right now is General Conference. We no longer in our office talk about how many months away it is. We doubt talk about how many weeks or days away it is, as it's just about upon us as we gather in Johannesburg for this huge event, as we ⁓ celebrate what God's doing across the Global Methodist Church, and we also act on things that we need to do as a denomination and as a movement. ⁓ one of the things that we deal with at General Conference, one of the primary things, is legislation that has come to us and that might become a part of the Book of Doctrines and Discipline. All of that legislation starts as a petition submitted by someone somewhere. And so today we're gonna take a look behind the curtain and to see how all of that process works, what is a petition? What happens when we receive one? What happens to them at general conference? And to do that, we are joined by a friend and a fellow staff member in the Global Methodist Church, Reverend Lamar Oliver. ⁓ Lamar actually carries two titles. He's the General Conference Petition Secretary, and he's also the Assistant General Conference Secretary. So Lamar, welcome. ⁓ across the globe the podcast. Well thank you Mike. It's a joy to be here and to spend time with you, the people of the Global Methodist Church as we seek to fulfill God's will in this very special and holy way. Well we're excited to have you here. Before we jump into all the questions about petitions, ⁓ why don't you share with everyone a little bit about yourself, your family and your ministry? Well I am Lamar Oliver. I am a native of Lake Charles, Louisiana, a graduate of Louisiana Tech University. Asbury Theological Seminary and Dakota Wesley and where I got my MBA. I currently am the pastor at Means Methodist Church in Andrews, Texas. My wife Erin and I will be celebrating twenty five years on July fourteenth. We are blessed with two children, Anna Catherine, who is ten, and Joseph, who is eight. And we are excited to play a small role in the work of the General Conference. I've been a member of the team since April of 2024 when I was brought on to be the petition secretary for the first round. So so speaking of that, Lamar, why don't you share with us what why? Why did you what interested you in the workings of General Conference and this behind the scenes petition stuff? How d how did you first get involved? What drives that? Well Mike, thanks for asking. I think what really attracted me to it is the idea that The petitions that are submitted by the church, whether they are approved to be presented, whether they are withdrawn, whether they're invalid, it actually provides a snapshot of what the people of the church are thinking at a given point in time. And especially in two thousand twenty four, it would be neat to come back fifty years later say, Well, what was going on? in two thousand twenty four. What was before the body and in two thousand twenty-six how the narrative of the petitions have changed and being having a part of all that is just been neat because I I like the history, I like to know what's going on. But I also think it's fun to watch how the patterns of the conversation of the church change over time. And we're two years now, but I'm really interested in twenty six to thirty-two and seeing how everything plays out because if you go and you put all this together, ⁓ you can see how the conversations are shifting. And ⁓ I just enjoy being a part of that. I got a call from Keith Boyette in the late winter of 2024 saying he heard I might be interested in this. And I it was a cold call. I had known nothing. I never spoke to Keith before in my life. And next thing I know ⁓ we're having a ball and I've been really blessed to work with Tom Lambrecht and the members of the global operations team, Tom and Keith were so gracious to invite me to expand my role to the assistant secretary. And what's really neat up there is if all you do is watch the live stream of General Conference, I think you're missing the best part because sitting up on a platform, you get to see how people's nonverbals change and Mike in two thousand twenty four, to see how the spirit of God was moving physically in people in ways they weren't even aware of. So in Both of these hats have allowed me to see a part of General Conference that is truly sacred and holy, but people don't necessarily think of it that way. That's awesome. And I appreciate it. I'm so thankful God led you in this direction. You've been an incredible blessing to all of us and to General Conference. So all right, we're gonna start with the very basics here. What is a petition? in the general in the context of general conference in the Global Methodist Church. Well see, this is a very important thing I think people forget is that anybody h within the Global Methodist Church has not only the right, but I would almost say the responsibility. If there's something in church law that or church doctrine that needs to be addressed, it needs to be brought before the general conference. It doesn't matter whether you're a lay person Whether you're a pastor, it doesn't matter if you're a bishop, it doesn't matter if you are a member of a team, a member of the staff. In fact, for two thousand twenty six, Mike, we made a change. We've taken all honorifics and titles out of petitioner names for the petitions. So that way you don't read, Well, this is by Reverend So and so or Dr. So and so. This is just Joe and Susie and Mike, members together in the GMC. And That's an important thing for us this year because we want everybody to know as our denomination has exploded in growth that every voice matters and every voice can be heard. And so a petition can do one of several things. It can and this is the most common, you can recommend an amendment to something in the book of Doctrines and Discipline. You can ⁓ look to replace a paragraph in the doctrines and discipline. You can add a paragraph and you can just And the other part of it is you can have a a resolution which does not carry the weight of church law, but it is a declaration of where the church stands on something right now. And those are going to be printed. Any resolutions that are passed by the general conference are going to be printed in the back of the Book of Doctrines and Disciplines. But under our law, resolutions expire at the beginning of the next general conference. So any resolution passed the twenty sixth doesn't automatically get carried forward. So that's one of the major differences between the a petition to about the book of discipline and the resolution is the resolution sunset automatically. Okay. And really what you're saying, a petition is an opportunity for anyone in the GMC to have a voice in the way we're structured, in the way we're moving, what's important to us, those kinds of things. So walk us through Somebody submits a petition, what happens to that petition? What what process does it go through? What's your job and how do you get it to general conference? All right, great question. Here's the way it starts is we announce in advance when the petition window is gonna open and you go online and you're you submit a petition and there's a specific form to walk through. And one thing that we're also very intentional about, Mike, is Whether you're in the US or whether you're in South America, whether you're in Asia, Africa, wherever, there are connection issues everywhere. And the only way we can manage our petitions is online, but every member of the Global Methodist Church can contact their church, their pastor, or their conference office. So everyone has a chance to submit a petition. A petition that is submitted by a group, and it has to be an official group. It cannot be just a group of people that says, Well, we are the you know the GMC group that supports, you know, whatever. It has to be an officially recognized group of either the general conference or the annual conference or a local church. So if a local church commission or count or local church council says, you know what, we really want this changed. The members of that local church through their church council can say we've adopted this petition. And the reason why I mentioned those groups is whether it's that local church council or whether it's the connectional council for the larger church, they submit their petition, but they also have to submit a either a letter or the minutes of the meeting where that was passed. And that's one of my major jobs is to take care of the substantiation for all that. For individuals, they have to have ten other members of the Global Methodist Church co-sign a petition. And one thing that I think is very important for us to remember is just because you co-signed a petition doesn't mean you're saying you're supporting it. You're saying that you will co-sign it so it can be presented to the body. And what we do in our office is we check all those emails and we check all those names to make sure because our philosophy is if you're gonna be asked to do it, as part of our accountability as Wesleyan's, we want it to be out there. Right. And so we check all that. And then it goes once we check once I do all the substantiation on our plan of organization and covenant, petitions are automatically assigned to a committee based off paragraph number. However, however, a ref I will make a reference committee, I will make a determination of where this petition goes, because sometimes an incorrect paragraph may be mentioned, or sometimes there may be other things. And so The reference committee kind of checks my work, if you will. And then they are assigned to a legislative committee at General Conference. And every petition that is presented to the General Conference has to be first considered by one of the eight legislative committees. And I will refer you to Beauty of Holiness two thousand twenty six dot org slash petitions if you want to learn more about all of that. And then each legislative committee has a role to play. They can either Reject, accept, or amend a petition. Okay. And ⁓ then those decisions are sent to the plenary session for ultimate approval by the plenary body. And the reason why that's important is no matter what a legislative committee does with a petition, the plenary ultimately is the final has the final say. So ⁓ and to help speed that along, so we have 448 petitions to consider. If a committee, a committee that will work on their petitions and any petitions that get 90% vote, either for or against, go on what's known as the legislative calendar. And what'll happen there is the that legislative calendar will be presented to the plenary as one. And the plenary can vote on that as one. But another thing, remember I said the plenary has the ultimate authority, and that includes the fact the plenary could say, that's nice that's on the plenary calendar. Or the legislative calendar, but we're gonna pull it off because we wanna discuss it. And the reason that's so important is the appearance of getting steamrolled. We wanna make sure that everybody knows every petition has the right to be heard if enough people in the plenary wanna go in that direction. And then once all that is done, once the every By the time we adjourn in Johannesburg, every petition will have been acted on in some way or other by the plenary session. And then Tom is our general conference secretary will be responsible for editing and laying out the new book of doctrines and discipline. And unless any other unless the legislation says otherwise, all legislation becomes effective January one the following year. Right. And th so really the process you've described, those legislative committees are huge in in terms of the process and how it works and what makes it to the floor of general conference. So I've been reading through the petitions. I'm about a third of the way through the 4848. ⁓ one thing I noticed say around a particular topic there might be ten posit petitions submitted from different people, different groups that all are dealing with one specific topic or paragraph. So when it gets to committee, they We have to discern what to do with all these ten, twelve versions of it. Is that is that correct? Right. And they can they can go with one of them, they could combine them into something if they wanted to, is that correct? Well it's funny you mentioned that because one of the things we're doing right now is the legislative committees are in the process of meeting virtually to elect their officers. They're not meeting to do any business, but they're meeting just to elect our officers so we can get ready for South Africa. And part of the training that Tom leads them through is when you have a a bunch of petitions or multiple petitions, it could be even be two that deal with the same Paragraph, the committees, it is recommended that they reject all but one and take and perfect that one. Right. So that way we don't have them all together. Okay. And so that way you you don't have two different petitions dealing with paragraph 483.7. There's one petition dealing with 483.7, and no, 483.7's not in the book. That's why I picked that number. That's a that's an example. I don't want anybody saying, Well, what are they hiding from us? All right. So this time around. In 2026 in Johannesburg, we have a major difference from the petitions that could be submitted in Costa Rica in 2024 because not everything was on the table back then. Can you explain to our listeners the difference between these two general conferences as it relates to petitions? That is actually where my job has changed the most in the two years is in 2024 we were in what I call the ⁓ Kickstarter phase. We were trying to just get everything on the table so we could form a denomination. And so we had what was known as a limited agenda in 2024. And it dealt more with the structure and getting to getting the skeleton of the organization together so that we could then get ready for 2026. So there were certain parts of what was then the transitional book of doctrines and discipline which was not available. And to that took for amendment. However, remember what I said at the beginning about submit petitions so we know what the church is thinking. There were four petitions that were deemed not within the limited agenda and they were automatically carried forward to 2026. Now, if you open up that 448, you will not see all those petitions there because in September of 2025, we reached back out to all those petitioners to find out where they were in their thinking. Did they still want their petition to go forward? Did they want to withdraw it? Whatever. They were not allowed to make any amendments to it or anything. It was straight up this was getting passed forward. And we had a few who said, hey, let's withdraw it. We had a few who said, let me think about it. Another verification in January. One other thing about that was something we missed in 2024 was the the paragraph numbers changed from the traditional book of doctrines and disciplines. So what we did in these petitions for this year is we mapped out where it would fall, where a petition would fall in this year's, and we confirmed that with the petitioner, and that was the only thing that was allowed to be changed between the two. So Last time we were dealing with a small part of the discipline. This time it's everything that's on the table and people can submit around anything. so ⁓ I'm sitting here thinking four hundred and forty eight petitions. I believe the we well, we just released two important documents. One a pre conference workbook that has lots of information for people, but in our conversation here, the more important thing, we released the petitions report. that lays out every petition. By the way, as I started reading through it, I I just want to give you kudos for the formatting of that booklet. It's amazing. It's so easy to use, read, understand, follow. You you guys did an amazing job, or you did an amazing job laying all of that out and making it easy to work with. But it's six hundred and six hundred and fifty four pages. Six hundred and fifty four pages. So I'm thinking about all of our delegates out there from around the world. They're having to wade through four hundred and forty-eight position petitions and six hundred and fifty plus pages. What kind of resources do we have available to help them as they're trying to do that? What what what do they do to wade through all of that? Well, the first thing I think that any delegate has to do when they approach the put pre-conference petitions report is to pray. And I don't mean that as a punchline, I mean that seriously. If we take seriously our understanding of the Holy Spirit, enabling and equipping the people of God to be the people of God, we need to first approach that process through prayer. But then another thing we look at in that in when it comes to that is understand that we have translated these into nine different languages, including English. And you will find the most current edition there. You will find there also and we just put it up today a version log because even though we published one point ⁓ last Janu July. Right. We're already up to version 1.2. And that version log serves two purposes. Number one, and this is most important to me, it serves as a measure of accountability. ⁓ But the second thing is it helps delegates see what edits have changed. You know, and most of the we don't put a lot of the commas and all that in there, but sometimes we've had to adjust a paragraph number that was referenced wrong or those kind of things. But when it comes to looking at it, you also have to understand that when it comes to petitions, you asked about Several petitions dealing with the same paragraph. This year what two major changes we made based on delegate feedback have to do with how petitions are organized and how they are indexed. And this year All petitions are laid out in paragraph order. Right. So that way if there's you go back to our four paragraph 483. All petitions dealing with 483 are going to be listed in order and chronological by when they were submitted. Okay. And the inde the ⁓ petitions are grouped by committee, so that way each committee has their own because some people will want to print out all six hundred and fifty-four. I'm not putting 654-page binder in my luggage. Sorry, not gonna happen. So it's the idea that there are some people who want to print out just what's dealing with their committee. And that's where the second index changes come because we move the indexes from the from the committee indexes from the front of the document to the front of each section. So if you're a member, say of the doctor of the Doctrine and Sacraments Commission, and you want the committee and you just want those petitions, you can print out that whole section and you'll have that index there. And then then And back of it will be the numerical index with everything there. So you ask about what else people can do to ⁓ look through it. If you use the PDF version on your tablet, which is what we highly recommend, everything is hyperlinked, including indexes, wherever. If you click on a on a petition, it'll take you straight there. And the other thing I would recommend for people, you ask how do they navigate with them? I would say one piece at a time. Right. because it's overwhelming to try to look at them all at once. I think another way you can look at it is and this is something that I think we miss a lot, Mike. One of the areas where I have grown most in my faith through this process. Is understanding that each person who submitted a petition loves their God and loves their church enough they wanted to put in a petition to change something. Right. And when you look at the petitions as an expression of someone trying their best to fulfill their membership vows of the Global Methodist Church, it changes your entire perspective on the petition because it's no longer about what about this idea, what about that idea? It's no longer about an attitude of suspicion, but it's an attitude of, huh, as you read the petition. Ask yourself, ask God to help you see what this person saw. Even if you don't agree with it, help when we allow ourselves to be in, as we used to say in the old communion liturgy, in love and charity with thy neighbor. It allows us, I think, to have a little bit more understanding. Because one of the things that I put in our in the cover letter was something I shared with our young clergy in March, was that Debate is not division, it is discernment. And I think that's something else we must remember as we read the Book of Discipl as we read the pre-conference report, well and the Book of Discipline. To keep the page count down, Mike, we did not double space it. Right. We don't have to read between the lines. Just put it right there, see what's going on, and trust that even if you come to a different conclusion on a matter, it doesn't mean the other person's a heretic. It doesn't mean that they are of this or that persuasion. It means they genuinely see an issue again. different way. Right. And I think of everything we've talked about, the three most important things would be prayer, would be looking in the right place, but having a spirit of charity toward those who wrote the petition, no matter how you feel about it. Exactly. Which raises an issue it you in your unique position to process all of these petitions. you don't take sides. You can't Deal with them based on your opinion about this or that. Talk a little bit about how you have to remain neutral in the middle of seeing things that you may totally disagree with. I think that the fact that I'm in this position proves God's got a sense of humor because I've got some opinions. You do. And what I love about it though is it makes me look at it in a different way. Right. It really allows me to do it because we all have these ideas. of where we think the church could go and what w the church could do. But if you look throughout church history, going back to Acts fifteen and what I call the first general conference at Jerusalem, you look at it, and God's people have always approached God a different way. But if you go back to our theology If you go back to our Wesley understanding of humanity and humanity's relationship with God, and we understand that no two people have the same relationship with God, and no two people have the same relationship with your church, it has opened my eyes to see that Why would we expect everybody to agree on everything or to have the same perspective? If we truly believe in the uniqueness of every human being, why would you know, so it gets back I almost think to our Imago Dei theology because when then we have to look at each other through the lens of God's leading. So that's that's what helps me kind of tamp it down. Plus I use AI a lot to help me see what I don't see. Right, exactly. And and I would say to all our listeners out there, look Mar and I were both in Costa Rica in 2024. One of the parts of that general conference that absolutely blew me away was watching people disagree on the general conference floor and do it in a way that honored and respected one another. Nobody was calling by names, nobody was putting anybody down, nobody was saying, What the world are you thinking here? People were respectfully disagreeing. Disagreeing with each other and then we voted. And and so that I I appreciate what you shared there because I think it's so true. And especially being a global church, we have so many cultures represented now in the global Methodist Church, 52 conferences, and it's about to be fifty-five or fifty-six here in just a month or two. it's you know, I in my position, I see the global differences, different different ways that we look at things, even though we agree. on the Orthodox faith, we agree on the Scriptures our authority, but when it comes to structuring the Global Methodist Church, we we might have some different ideas about that. You know, one of the things that I have learned through this process as we're building it this year, is it's fun to see also how people have radically different visions of their church. And I've joked with you, there are some who just want to put everything in concrete that we have now, dot every I, across every T. And then there are some people who just I almost think they want to put the book of discipline on a three by five index card. And so to watch not only people's theology but their ecclesiology come out. Right. And that global nature you talked about, one of the challenging things you asked about my opinion of what I have noticed about petitions is I've asked myself, I wonder has this been considered from a global perspective? Right. And I and that's been a huge thing even as we even before we opened the petitions window, we challenged people before they submitted petitions to make sure because what we noticed in the Book of Doctrines and Discipline currently, there are several things in there that are very US centric. We've begun to recognize that, to own it, to to name it. And so we've challenged people as they submitted petitions, think about a global church. And I I've noticed reading through the petition, several people are suggesting things be taken out. of our current discipline for that very reason, that this is really a US based philosophy or this is something that only applies in the US. And so what do we put in there so that the Book of Doctrines and Discipline is really structured for the whole world and not just a part of the world. I won't give away the whole store, but I'll say this There is some d one of the things about 2026 is we actually have petitions that were submitted from outside the US. We didn't have that in 24. Right. But the other thing is for those who really want to dive deep, look at what the issues are that are being brought about from the US delegations versus the non-US delegations. Because it is a ma and and not because one is right or wrong or better or worse, but just because I think that also gives us some wisdom into what do people see in their church. Right. Right. And and different concerns and in my position I see that almost on a daily basis, what people are passionate about about in different parts of the world. And you see that in the petitions to your point as you look at where it came from or who it came from and So it's fascinating. I want to encourage all of you ⁓ to take time to read through the petitions. You you're sitting there thinking, I don't 600 and some pages of something, but you can actually skim them pretty easily because of the way Lamar's laid it out. It's so easy to just look at something, see what it's about, see what they're recommending as a change. You don't have to read everything that's being deleted or changed or whatever. So I really want to encourage you to do that. So, Lamar and all of this, what stood out to you? I know you've shared this with me in some casual conversations, but as you start receiving the petitions, ⁓ just From a 30,000 foot view, what what jumped off the page at you about our church right now? What really jumped off the page to me is that we have a bunch of people who are committed to their church, but they genuinely have a different approach to it. And what's jumped out to me a lot also has to do with Are we reacting to our past or are we responding to our future? And I'm not sure exactly which one of the observations you were looking at, but I think one of the things that I have seen as a change from 24 to 26 is 24 in many ways, because a lot of our constituency had some very painful times before 2024. And whenever you come out of a relationship that did not end optimally, there is a perfectly human understanding that you want to put the defenses up to where you want to ensure that you'll never get hurt again by something like that. Right. And you can feel the pain coming out. But in two thousand twenty six, there's very much a shift toward this is our future. This is where I see us more embracing our future and perfecting our future and not as much about the past. There's only six or seven petitions total that either in the rationale or in the text refer to someone's previous Christian tradition. And so it's just fun to watch us living into the 2026 and beyond. That's exciting. And I appreciate you sharing those insights. I I think it's huge and as I've visited You as you were reflecting what you were looking at. It's just fascinating to watch your observations as I started reading through them. I had some of those same uppers observations, see what people are passionate about, where our focus is shifting. So you mentioned prayer earlier. What where would you encourage not just delegates but everybody in the GMC to be praying as it relates to this petition process? A friend of mine will remind me sometimes when I get passionately excited, just remember Jesus is still on the throne. Yes. Okay, and it's one of those things where when it comes to praying about it, when it comes to looking at it, remember this is not our church, this is God's church. And for the whole of the two thousand years of the Christian witness. You could make the case that the church has survived and thrived not because of what we do, but in spite of what we've done. Okay, so there will be and I've already seen it and it makes me sad. There are some who say, Well, this petition passes, well, it's the end of the Global Methodist Church. So if this happens, we've turned our back on this, that or the other. And I think we need to be cautious in our rhetoric. Because this is not a this is not an Oxford debating society where we're gonna take a poll before we start, before we end, and who changed the minds when. This is a matter of we are prayerfully discerning. Right. And ⁓ so you start talking about where do we go, what do we do when we start. I think the other thing that I noticed was a lot of two thousand twenty-four and twenty-six the change has come from struct ⁓ ⁓ doctrine verse structure. And the two thousand twenty-four I could see a lot of clarity being wanted both in doctrine and structure. That's why the plenary session is one of the very last, if not the very last act ch ⁓ charged the commission on doctrine and I forget the full name, please forgive me, to come up with our articles of faith. And what's been really neat is instead I looked at that the same way I do the petitions that have come forward now. It's about clarity. But what's really neat, Mike, is No longer's the GMC an idea of well will it work. We are now getting into the business of perfecting ourselves. And we are not asking exactly the same questions that have been asked throughout church history. But whether it's structure, whether it's theology, whether it's doctrine, the people of the GMC are seeking clarity this time in a way that they weren't even in two thousand twenty four. Two thousand twenty four, it kind of struck me as well. Is this real? Is this gonna happen? But now we're perfecting it. I think it's a great thing. And I love that. And I I would kind of d leapfrog off of that and say to our listeners, ⁓ I r I would really challenge us to be praying in light of what Lamar just said. Praying for legislation to be passed that will keep us a movement and not form an institution or a denomination. That that we really ask for God's discernment. How do we stay nimble? How do we stay passionate about the mission and the vision, not the institution? ⁓ how do we keep the main thing the main thing? And so And I think my my response to that would be that Challenge for us all, brothers and sisters, is let's make sure we're defined by who we are, not defined by who we are not. whether that's looking at contemporary church history or ancient Hurst church history. We have such a rich history, especially in the Wesleyan movement. We have such a richness and the depthness of our understanding of grace, our understanding of God's provision, our understanding of accountability. Going back to the bands in the classes Wesley was always defining us by what we could be if we let God continue doing his sanctifying work within us. And my prayer is it's the same for the church, that we leave the behind the behind and we embrace what is next. Because Wesley called us to look to what was coming. I love that. I love that. That's a great word to kind of wrap this up. Although we ask every guest we have on Across the Globe the podcast this last question. ⁓ boy. No, this is should be An easy one. We want to give a shout out to your local church. So we would like for you to share with our audience where you pastor and tell us a little bit of what God is doing in that place right now. What excites you in your current Global Methodist Church? So first tell us where you're at. All right. ⁓ And one of the reasons why I love the Global Methodist Connection is sitting here as part of the global operations team. I'm also pastor of a local church. So even in the midst of our global structure, we have that connection. And Means is a church that is well over 100 years old. And it is in a county seat town in Andrews County, Texas, about 12,000 people. And what what I really love is that when we were doing our discerning visit, we don't interfere. view we discern in the Global Methodist Church. ⁓ The people were talking about this is our vision for what's coming next. This is our vision for this, that, and the other. And the main thing is is when I interviewed there, or when I discerned there, see I caught myself. When I discerned there was they said, Lamar, we have what we call a wacky Wednesday on a program at four o'clock on Wednesdays. I said, tell me about that. They said, well we have about 70 to 80 kids from the community. ninety percent or more are not members of the church, but they're here every week. And what and I told them when we went back and sat, I said, you know, that sold me more than anything. I said, because y'all weren't talking about, Lamar, what are you gonna do to get these people to join the church? You were talking about this is our mission and outreach. We hope and pray that they will join the church. But they didn't put this ministry together for what they could get out of it. They put it together for what they could put into the community. And I really, really, that really, really resonated with me because that's the mindset. We're not trying to we're to go back to what you were talking about, we're not trying to save an institution. We're trying to grow the kingdom. And we're not so people ask me about means. That's the first story I tell them is they are outward looking because they want to make sure that it's okay that they have non members coming who get to hear about Jesus. I'm like that's kind of what we did here. I l I love that. And by the way, I've I've preached in that church that Lamar now pastors an amazing group of people. They are passionate about Jesus, passionate about the kingdom, and I'm just excited that you're there pastoring and leading them now. Lamar, we want to thank you for coming and joining us today. And you you've done an amazing job sharing with us your heart for the petition process, but also helped us understand what happens, ⁓ how how this whole process works for us to end up with a book of doctrines and discipline. And I want to personally thank you as a part of our GMC staff for your servant heart. And all the incredible things you do way beyond petitions to ensure that the GMC is the healthiest, most God-focused, kingdom-focused movement that it can be. And I appreciate your heart for reaching people for Jesus. So thank you for being here today. Thank you. As we close today, I I want to remind you if you want to check out the resources or any of the things that Lamar mentioned today, he mentioned this website earlier, but let me repeat it. It's the Beauty of Holiness 2026. You can get to it even through our regular GMC website, but you can go there directly, the Beauty of Holiness2026.org. All kinds of resources around General Conference. You could read through all the petitions, you can see the pre-conference workbook, lots of stuff there, both for delegates and for those who are not delegates and a part of a GMC church and want to know what's going on. I want to thank all of you for joining us today, and it's been a blessing visiting with my friend Lamar. And I hope you'll join us next time around on Across the Globe the podcast as we continue to share stories from all over the world of what God is doing through the GMC to further his kingdom, to make disciples of Jesus Christ, and to spread scriptural holiness across the globe. God bless you. We look forward to our next time together.