In my very first blog post, I shared that I don’t write primarily write for others. I write to, as Haddon Robinson once said, “scrape the fungus off [my] thoughts.” I write to process and know what I think. Mind you, I write in my journal my most personal processings. But I’ve found that I learn best when I hear others process out loud, so I hope it’s helpful for you to hear me process “out loud” in writing.

A few weeks ago, I was ordained an elder in the Global Methodist Church. But God had called me to ordained Methodist ministry long ago. In fact, I became aware of this call on my life more than half my life ago, specifically, on January 16, 2010.

“You can even yell, for crying out loud!”

As a freshman in high school, I was on the Leadership Team of my church’s youth group. We had gone on a Youth Leadership Team retreat at Camp Timpoochee in Niceville, Florida. It was one of those objectively terrible days—a day where I felt like people were intentionally doing things just to annoy me. No matter where I went, I felt invisible. I walked into a room where someone was playing guitar and everyone was singing, only to be unintentionally blocked at the door because no one knew I was there. I went to another room where people were playing the game “Mafia” and nobody acknowledged my presence. I went to a third room where people were doing—I can’t remember what—but whatever it was, I wasn’t invited.

I grabbed my journal and sat on the couch in the living room of the cabin. I wrote a few paragraphs about how confused and alone I felt at this point in my life. I was trying to do God’s will, but I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to make future plans that God would approve of, but I didn’t know what those future plans were. And besides, my middle school girlfriend and I had been texting recently… so while God was telling me these other things, could He tell me if I should get back together with her?

I ended my journal entry with this: “[I’ve been advised] to pray a lot of times, but I can’t hear God speak. I read His word, but I don’t hear Him speak. I spend quiet time, but I don’t hear Him speak. Speak, God! If You want, You can even yell, for crying out loud!”

Little did I know that He would take me seriously.

I closed my journal, walked out to the front porch of the cabin and just sat there, having a pity party that only I was invited to. After a few minutes, my youth director, Wayne, walked up from the mess hall, looked at me and said, “You okay, Hunter?”

I put on my best smile and tried to sound cheerful as I said, “Yep!” He walked inside as I breathed out a sigh of relief… he couldn’t tell that I actually wasn’t okay. But deep down, my heart wanted someone to reach out, someone to tell me that I wasn’t alone.

Apparently my poker face wasn’t all I thought it was. A couple moments later, Wayne walked back out to the porch and sat down next to me. We talked about a lot—my family, my friends, the guy courting my sister that I didn’t want her to date. It was one of those conversations where time stands still. Maybe the conversation lasted 30 minutes; maybe it lasted 3 hours. I suspect closer to the latter.

I remember a few bits and pieces from the conversation, but what I remember clear as day was when Wayne asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. With all the confidence in the world, I told Wayne that I wanted to be a lawyer or a sports agent. It only made sense—I was on the high school debate team (and I thought I was pretty good) and I loved sports—what else would I do with those skills and passions? Wayne said to me, “That’s great! Some of the best ministers I know never step foot behind a pulpit.”

Wayne would know. He’s one of the best ministers I know. And while he gave inspiring youth sermons and taught intellectual-yet-applicable Bible studies, being a youth pastor wasn’t his full-time gig. He was in the insurance business, but was a youth pastor because he loved and believed in youth.

For the first time ever, God spoke to me. Not an audible voice (that’s never happened to me), but something even more real than an audible voice. In a place I only know how to describe as “my heart of hearts,” God said, “Wayne’s right. But that’s not what I’ve called you to.”

I wish I could say I wept tears of joy after hearing God speak. I wish I could tell you that I responded like Mary after an angel spoke to her, “May your word to me be fulfilled” (Luke 1:38).

But no. It freaked me out. As a fourteen-year-old, I told God: “I can’t do that to my wife and kids.” I didn’t even have a girlfriend, much less a wife and kids! But somewhere deep inside of me, I had internalized something about ministry: Ministry is bad for families.

I pretended like nothing happened and continued on with my conversation with Wayne. After what felt like several hours, I went inside, pondering what had just happened.

I wish I could tell you that in that moment, I was perfectly sanctified. I wish I could even tell you that I was a great Christian. But the very next day—I kid you not—I had an outburst of anger unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

A bit of background: I’m an emotional guy. I started learning that about myself in middle school. But I didn’t know what to do with my emotions. So I mostly tried to shove them down or turn emotions I didn’t want to show (sadness, compassion, love, disappointment, etc.) into emotions I felt were acceptable to show (happiness, excitement, frustration, etc.). But emotions are a funny thing. You can try to force them into the shape you want them to become, but they don’t often listen. So my emotions would often come out as anger. I had an anger problem that, as a freshman in high school, was starting to get out of control.

That morning, it did get out of control. In one of our leadership meetings, someone I had previous conflict with said something I disagreed with. So I told him I disagreed with him. When he pushed back verbally, I pushed back harder. He started yelling, so I started yelling. And then, without me knowing it, I blacked out to the world. My anger had so taken over me that the next thing I knew, I was standing up, pointing my finger at him, and trembling.

I didn’t know what had just happened. I couldn’t tell you how long I blacked out. I couldn’t tell you what I said. I prayed that I hadn’t cursed in front of my peers, youth volunteers, and Wayne. I came to because I saw a look of fear in my sister’s eyes. Sitting right next to me, I saw in her eyes something I had never seen before. My sister (and best friend) looking at me with fear. I knew then that I had a problem. I sat down, buried my head in shame, and prayed that God would heal me from my anger.

That’s who God had called to be a pastor: a 14-year-old kid with a really bad temper.

(Praise God, though, because I think He has healed me and is healing me from that anger… I still don’t always show up in disagreements the way I’d like, but it’s been over a decade since I’ve shown up with uncontrolled anger.)

Bargaining with God

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The next several months on my journey of discernment were a blur. If I remember correctly, for the next 14 or so months, I didn’t tell a soul what God had said. I prayed about it and asked God what He wanted from me. I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—give into this fear I had that God was calling me into full-time pastoral ministry. It wasn’t fair to my future wife and kids and I would have none of it.

So I put my perceived lawyer skills to the test and began trying to negotiate with God. Okay, God, I’ll give up my dream of being a sports agent. What if I was a full-time lawyer and volunteered with the youth? But no peace came with that prayer.

What if I was a full-time lawyer and a part-time youth director? No peace came with that prayer either.

What if I was a full-time lawyer and a full-time youth director? Wayne seemed to handle the whole two-jobs things well and he was the best minister I knew. Still no peace.

What if I was a full-time youth director and part-time lawyer? Anything but giving my life to ministry! Still no peace.

(Until seminary, I didn’t know about the concept of bivocational pastoral ministry, or else I would have had a true title for the career plans I was giving God.)

Finally, one day, in a fit of desperation to feel God’s peace, I prayed, Fine. Are you calling me to be a full-time pastor? Immediately, I felt a burden lifted and felt God’s peace for the first time in several months.

But I didn’t know what the next step was and I was too afraid to tell anyone, so I kept it to myself.

God Speaks… A Lot

The next year, in the spring of 2011, one of the pastors at my church, Pastor Sean, stepped up to the pulpit and began talking about a word I had only heard in Methodist churches: itineracy. When a Methodist pastor begins talking about itineracy on a Sunday morning, one thing’s for sure: they’re about to tell you that they’re moving.

Sure enough, Pastor Sean was moving to another church. I was devastated. I liked Pastor Sean but I especially liked his kids. His daughter and son were some of my best friends. So not only was I losing a pastor I liked, but I was losing my friends too. “See,” I probably told God, “this ministry thing is terrible for families.”

But, for the second time in my life, God spoke to me again in my heart of hearts: “I have something for you in this.” It felt a little selfish to think that God would have something for me in this, but I truly believed God was saying it, so I began to have peace about this transition.

A few weeks later, a baby-faced preacher and his wife and baby boy came to visit our church. They came to the 11:07 contemporary service, where I sat with my friends on the far side of a basketball gym-turned-worship center. The three of them stood up on the opposite end of the room filled with 400 or so people as the senior pastor introduced him as the coming associate pastor of our church. But in that moment, clear as day, God said, “He’s going to be your mentor.”

“Ridiculous,” I retorted. “I don’t need a mentor. Mentors are for people who need help. I don’t need help. Count me out.” (What’s funny about this is that, as I look back on my three decades of life, I’ve had so many mentors. And one of my favorite things about my life is the mentors I have.) Over the course of the hour-long worship service, God showed me just how much help I needed and by the end, I was bawling in the closing song telling God, “Fine. He can be my mentor.”

But how do you just walk up to someone and say, “God told you to be my mentor.” (Answer: you don’t.) Instead, I told Wayne. Everything. At our summer youth camp a few weeks later, I asked Wayne if we could talk. I told him about our conversation some 17 months back. I told him that I felt called to full-time pastoral ministry.

His response: “I know.” He knew?! Who told him?! I hadn’t told anybody!

But, apparently, God had told him. Wayne told me that he knew I was going into ministry way before I did but that he had to wait for God to tell me. Even now, I’m brought to tears at the kindness of God to show other people this calling on my life so that I could be supported when I told them.

Within the first few weeks of starting to tell a couple of friends, family, and church members about this calling, Wayne wasn’t the only one who had known. Several different people told me they knew, affirming this call from God.

I also told Wayne that I felt like this new Pastor Jonathan guy was supposed to be my mentor. It was Jonathan’s first week on the job and Wayne told me that he would set up a meeting with me, Wayne, and Jonathan once we got back home from camp.

Greek Food

He did. We ate at a Greek restaurant in town. Lunch was delicious and the conversation was even better. It’s the first time I’m realizing this, but I think that Greek restaurant is a symbol of what God was doing in my life.

You see, my dad’s a commercial real estate broker. As part of his job, he sometimes takes people into empty buildings and lets them walk around and see if the dream they have in their head can match the building they’re in. One of these empty buildings my dad showed was the Greek restaurant.

I’ve been on dozens of these showings with my dad. Sometimes you can tell that people immediately know it’s a yes or a no. Sometimes people are harder to read. I particularly remember this showing though. I believe the place used to be an old liquor store. It was ugly. This Greek man walks in sharing a dream of a nice Greek restaurant in the town of Shalimar. Forget about it, man, I thought, not in this place. There were 100 reasons why I thought he shouldn’t open up a Greek restaurant in that building.

If you drive to the Aegean Restaurant in Shalimar, Florida today, you’ll see just how wrong I was.

I think that’s what God was doing, albeit much slower than the owners of the Aegean Restaurant. He was taking something that I thought couldn’t be made into what the Master Planner thought it could be and was slowly renovating the inside into becoming something He designed. When God called a high school kid with anger issues and doubts that God would protect his family into a career of leading the people of God, it felt to me like God walked into a liquor store and said, “I can work with this.”

There’s been a lot of times I’ve thought, Forget about it, man. You can’t make this guy a pastor. Much like the Aegean Restaurant, I was wrong.

Discernment and Calling

Pastor Jonathan and I hit it off quickly. In fact, we hit it off so well that my office door is approximately 18 inches from his these days. But we’ll get there soon enough.

Over the next couple years, Jonathan and I met regularly as I began to process my calling with him. He introduced me to my District Superintendent and I began the arduous process towards ordination as an elder in the United Methodist Church.

One of the first steps in the process towards ordination in the UMC is to read a book about discerning a call to ordination in the denomination. It was a helpful book that introduced me to many different kinds of ministry within the UMC. But what was most helpful were the conversations Jonathan and I had because of this book.

One thing Jonathan said has stuck with me ever since: “Always be discerning your calling.” At the time, and for many years after, I thought Jonathan meant to always be discerning what job title I was going to have. So I thought about youth ministry, military chaplaincy, college ministry, and pastoral ministry. I even contemplated ministry as a professor until Greek kicked my behind.

What I’ve since learned though (and confirmed with Jonathan), is that what Jonathan was referring to wasn’t about discerning a job title. Our calling is bigger than a job title. Rather, it’s a discernment of how God has uniquely made each and every one of us; how He wants us to use our unique gifts, experiences, and personality; what needs in the world can benefit from those; and how to live all of that out.

I thought calling was a static thing (i.e. “My calling is to be a kindergarten teacher.”) I later learned that this came from a mindset of seeing a job as your identity. Rather, calling is a dynamic thing, something that ebbs and flows as you learn more about yourself and the world and the context in which you live changes.

Over the past many years, I’ve lived out my calling through a hospital chaplaincy internship where I felt like God placed me there primarily to minister to and alongside nurses. I’ve lived out my calling through coordinating worship at Asbury Seminary. I’ve lived out my calling by discipling a couple college students while I was in seminary. I’ve lived out my calling through co-founding and running Preacher’s Block. I’ve lived out my calling by helping to inform a church I was a layperson at about what it meant to disaffiliate from the UMC.

We are all called by God. I believe that calling is often bigger than a job. So we live out God’s calling on our lives in so many different ways in our lives. Calling isn’t the specific ship we’re on, but the direction in which the ship is going.

A Pastor with a Business Degree

But back to high school Hunter. If there’s one theme from the time I felt called to pastoral ministry until now, it’s probably that I’ve learned a lot from others. So in high school, when I was deciding where to go for college, knowing that a Master of Divinity in seminary would be next (a requirement for ordained elders in the UMC), I began asking pastors what degree I should get and where it should come from.

Certainly, I thought, I should get a Bible degree from a Christian college. Overwhelmingly, though, pastors told me: “Get a degree you’ll enjoy from a place you’ll enjoy. You’ve got a lot of schooling ahead and they’ll teach you all the Bible stuff at seminary.”

So, after looking at Alabama, Samford, Florida State, and Georgia, I went to the University of Alabama for undergraduate degrees in Business Management and Communication Studies because I like business and I like to talk.

Fast-forward four years and in my first few months of seminary, though, I resented those people who told me that I’d get all the Bible stuff in seminary. Many of my peers attended Christian colleges and got undergraduate Bible degrees. They spouted off Greek the first day of class and named first-century theologians like they had just had lunch with them. I felt behind.

But after a few months, I began to notice something: many of those same people that made me feel dumb would share ideas about how to run a church and I thought, “Never would that ever work. People don’t think like that. It would cost too much. People aren’t willing to change that quickly.” What I learned was that for every mile I was behind in systematic theology and church history, I was two miles ahead for practical theology. And I’ve come to believe that theology that isn’t practical isn’t good theology.

Mentors Along the Way

Back to Tuscaloosa. During my time in college, I met incredible people. I was in my first Wesleyan discipleship band thanks to the Bama Wesley Foundation. I learned what it was like to live out Christian faith in community. I learned the value of intergenerational discipleship from a man named Danny who took me and a couple others out to breakfast at the crack of dawn once a week. I even learned how to preach sermons on a regular basis.

I had been worshipping at a United Methodist Church in Tuscaloosa when the associate pastor, Byron, reached out to me about participating in a dramatic crucifixion reenactment (which got way more dramatic than I anticipated, which you can read about here). While eating lunch over tacos, Byron asked what I wanted to do when I graduated from Alabama. I told him that I wanted to be a pastor, which immediately bonded us.

He invited me to become an intern at the church, where I helped with youth and preached on a regular basis. That patient church watched me preach sermons on zombies and witches (I kid you not) and encouraged and blessed me as I learned what it meant to treat the Word of God seriously.

The church even gave me the opportunity to learn about conflict and unhealthy leaders in the church. When a layperson cornered me in a room and began berating me about something I had no control over, I had to learn skills in differentiation. I also learned that most often, people’s anger at church is more about them than you.

Through it all, Byron kept sitting down with me to talk it over. When I was embarrassed about how a sermon went, he encouraged me. When I thought I preached a sermon so great that only God Himself could preach it better, he showed me all the areas of improvement. He became an open book as he walked me through every step the church took to let a staff person go. And the first time he and I sat down after I had been ambushed by Mr. Angry Pants, he looked at me, began to laugh before I said a word and said to me, “So you lost your ministry virginity, I guess.” From Byron, I learned that you don’t have to take yourself or others seriously in order to take ministry seriously.

Also during this time, I met a girl who would become my wife and my co-partner in ministry. In numerous ways, she was an answer to prayers. From the very beginning, she knew I was called to be a pastor, but I remember sitting her down to tell her what that meant for our family. “We’ll be forced to move every 3-5 years, you know. It’ll totally uproot our lives as we move an hour or two away,” I’m sure I told her. You can back out of this insane life that’s been chosen for me, I thought about saying.

“3 to 5 years?” she said. “That’s a long time to live in a place. I’ve never lived somewhere that long.” As a military kid—and a fighter pilot’s child at that—she moved a lot. She went to 6 different elementary schools as she ping-ponged around the country. I can imagine God laughing at me fearing that nobody would be willing to marry someone who had to move every three to five years. And laughing even harder because He knew that the Global Methodist Church would entrust appointment decisions primarily to churches and pastors, with a bishop’s guidance and blessing. (I’m proud of the GMC’s appointment system because I think it’s good for pastor’s families, which is good for churches. Pastors have significantly more say about whether a move is good for them, given the season of life their family and ministry is in.)

During the summers, when I was back at home, I was graciously welcomed at a church in my hometown for a summer internship. I worked under an incredible pastor, Christina, who taught me what it was like to make pastoral ministry fun, even when it isn’t always fun. For example, because the children’s ministry needed volunteer chaperones (and most certainly not because it’s one of my favorite movies), we went to watch “The Greatest Showman” with the children’s ministry.

I learned that people at church sometimes say the darnedest things that make you just shake your head and wonder what profession you’ve gotten yourself into (so darnedest that I dare not repeat them in writing). I learned from the youth pastor, Matt, that the best senior pastors trust every person on their team to be the best person in that position. Good leaders trust a lot.

I also learned the heart-breaking reality that female pastors—though equally called by God and equipped for ministry as their male counterparts—sometimes get treated unequally. It’s something I’ve seen over and over and isn’t just sequestered to church world.

My senior year, I visited four seminaries: Asbury, Candler (Emory), Duke, and Perkins (Southern Methodist). I secretly wanted to go anywhere but Asbury. Nearly everyone told me that I’d be going to Asbury, even saying things to me like, “Why are you even looking at other seminaries? You know you’re going to Asbury.” When I feel put in a box, I try to push back… hard.

I’m glad I visited those other seminaries. Duke was beautiful but I knew I would never fit in. Candler could never get my name right, even after I had just introduced myself. Perkins was incredible and their hospitality was genuine. Little did I know how much it would mean to me to be able to say that I sat in a class with the legendary Billy Abraham.

But everything Perkins did, Asbury did better. My (unexpected) six years at Asbury was so good and yet had some really, really hard moments. But going through a discernment process of four seminaries was able to remind me, even in the hardest moments at Asbury, that I was in the right place.

Holy Times in a Holy City

People like to joke about what seminary didn’t teach them. But seminary isn’t designed to teach you everything. It’s designed to teach you what the rest of life can’t. It’s designed to teach you what’s essential for the people of God so that you can go and learn the rest with the people of God.

Seminary taught me so, so much. It taught me what Christian community looks like. It taught me the power of hospitality. It taught me conflict resolution, time management, and a whole host of theological concepts.

Seminary also created a beautiful environment for me to learn how to be a husband for the first four years of our marriage. We were surrounded by such loving mentors and friends, many of whom had just gotten married themselves. Many of these friendships are just as strong (if not stronger) now as when we lived in the same town.

Working in the seminary’s Chapel Office taught me that ministry is a team sport. It taught me the holiness of preparing for worship. It taught me how to anticipate worship services before they happened and how to enjoy the surprise of worship services when they didn’t go as expected.

Working for the seminary’s Dean of Chapel taught me that memeing is a ministry. It taught me how to lead well and how to follow well. And that good friends and great bosses aren’t mutually exclusive categories.

There are few days in pastoral ministry that I haven’t thought, “Yup, I learned that from Jessica.” I’m not sure there’s been a day that I’ve not used a lesson from one of my many mentors. Mentors are like that: though you move away from them, their impact on your life continues to grow.

A New Denomination

During my time in seminary, the United Methodist Church was rupturing. I had noticed the instability of the denomination in my first year of seminary. I had no idea how that instability would be resolved but, hearing how vindictive many in the UMC had become, I declined to renew a UMC scholarship I received my first year so as not to be held financially liable to a system that was ever-changing.

In February 2019—my second year in seminary—a special session of the UMC’s General Conference occurred. Being branded as the conference that would resolve the conflict over defining biblical sexuality for the denomination, I had great hope that the instability I knew was in the UMC would finally be resolved. It wasn’t.

In hearing from General Conference delegates, I saw second-hand just how unmanageable, unaccountable, and dysfunctional the UMC was as a denomination. I remember distinctly the somberness of UMC students on Asbury’s campus as General Conference was coming to an end. It felt like the troubles of the UMC were just beginning.

But I learned something very important in that General Conference. Before that conference, I had been learning about the two main “camps” of the UMC’s division. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn’t like either one’s rhetoric and the way they discussed the issues. I also learned that some of that may have been more about how they represented their sides than the character of the leaders of each camp.

Before the conference started, I was on the fence about which “camp” I was in. Theologically, it was clear that I found myself in the traditionalist camp. But rhetorically, I felt like I didn’t belong in either camp. Before a delegate I trusted left for the General Conference, she said, “Listen to each side. See which one sounds like Jesus.”

That’s a bold thing to say, but she was right. The leaders of the traditionalist camp—with very few exceptions—sounded kinder, more compassionate, and more loving to all, even those they disagreed with. This conviction for their theological position and love for those they disagreed with told me in which camp I wanted to pitch my tent.

I was grateful to not be graduating in 2019, 2020, or 2021 (my original graduation date, which was postponed after I chose to work in the Chapel Office for a few years). Between 2019 and 2022, lots was changing in the UMC. During that time, I was involved in the leadership of the United Methodist Student Association on Asbury’s campus, even leading it as president for a couple years. We met a few times a year and each time we met, it felt like everything had changed for the UMC since the previous meeting.

I learned more than I ever could anticipate about a thing called “The Protocol,” which ended up being killed before it ever saw a General Conference floor. I learned about legal ramification of disaffiliation and denominational history of separation. Then I learned how to communicate all of that to seminary students, Sunday School peers, and a church council.

On May 1, 2022, a new denomination formed, the Global Methodist Church. It truly has been just that—Global in that the denomination currently comprises of over 4,860 churches from 22 countries (and growing literally every day!); Methodist in that it is reclaiming a passion for Scriptural holiness; and a church that worships passionately, loves extravagantly, and witnesses boldly.

Knowing what I knew about the future of the United Methodist Church and the theology of the Global Methodist Church, I knew that God was going to lead me to pastor in the Global Methodist Church. But less than a year before my graduation from seminary, there were zero Global Methodist Churches in the region I felt called to serve and even when churches in that area did start joining the GMC, they were so focused on disaffiliation that they didn’t have the time or money to be thinking about hiring a pastor.

Almost a United Methodist Pastor

Many advisors told me to keep on the path to ordination within the United Methodist Church, which I did. Amidst a full-time hospital chaplaincy internship, I worked on the infamously challenging and cumbersome United Methodist ordination requirements. The process was both challenging and confirming. It was challenging in that I felt like I had to be authentic to my own theological beliefs and personality and yet appeasing to people who didn’t share my own theological beliefs. But it was also confirming that, yes, I had learned things in seminary, and yes, I did still feel called to pastoral ministry. Even as I continued to follow Jonathan’s advice to always be discerning my calling, God continued to affirm that calling within me.

After months of leading a Bible study, preaching, assessments, and writing nearly 100 pages of theological papers, I submitted my commissioning packet to the Board of Ordained Ministry. Months later, I sat before this board for questioning about everything I had written, my calling, and who God made me to be. The questioning was intense (I’ve half-jokingly referred to it as a firing squad, because you sit in front of 4-6 people and have them ask questions for what feels like hours while you sweat bullets trying to answer). But I’m also grateful that the ordination and commissioning process was taken so seriously—it’s a serious thing to be ordained into the Church.

Those interviews were also affirmation that I was not going to stay in the UMC for long. I was questioned about why I only referred to God the Father with masculine pronouns and not feminine pronouns as well. I was around conversations about who had been elected bishop that focused on their demographics and completely neglected their callings and gifts for such a significant role in the church. But there were also bright spots of joy and relief. There were people who I now serve alongside me in the Global Methodist Church who were kind, compassionate, and encouraging while I sweated bullets. There were moments when God reminded me that even if some of the people I was sitting before didn’t accept me, that He still did. And there were people who I deeply cared about that I got to know better through those interviews.

As I walked out of my final Board of Ordained Ministry interview at First Methodist Church, Andalusia, I had tears in my eyes. Things didn’t go well and I thought there was only a slim chance that I would be commissioned in the UMC that year. I didn’t know if there would be a job waiting for me that following summer. But sitting at a Zaxby’s an hour or two later, I got a call from a pastor I’ve always admired who told me that I had been approved for commissioning in the UMC. I doubt he’s reading this, but if you are, I just want to thank you for being the one to call me to give me that good news. I’ve wished often that you were serving in the GMC and I often looked forward to being one of your colleagues, but given my family’s history with you, it meant a lot that you were the one to call me to share that news.

Over the next couple weeks, I heard rumors about where I might go to serve in the UMC. It was exciting but also nerve-wracking. I didn’t know how long I would be staying at that church and I didn’t know if I’d be leading them out of the UMC into the GMC. I’m grateful that I never had to do that with a church; horror story after horror story remind me that those who did lead a church through disaffiliation suffered a lot to do so, no matter how “easy” the disaffiliation seemed to be.

At the same time, a couple soon-to-be-GMC churches started having conversations with me as well. Several months before, Jonathan had made an off-hand comment about how much he’d enjoy having me be his associate pastor at Mulder Church. I brushed it off as a joke but ever since he had said it, I dreamed of the possibility of serving as my mentor’s associate. It felt like a full-circle, dream-come-true fantasy.

In the fall of 2022, I told one of my other mentors about this conversation I had had with Jonathan. I said, “He was joking, right? He couldn’t have been serious.” She told me that pastors don’t joke about who they want as their associates because it might just come true. So I called Jonathan up and said, “Were you serious about wanting me to be your associate?” One thing led to another and by the time I was about to receive my appointment to pastor a United Methodist Church, pastoring at Mulder Church seemed like it could be a reality.

In early 2023, I had to inform the UMC Bishop that I was leaving the UMC. I had no job lined up and frankly, many things still had to fall into place before I did have a job after graduation. But I was confident that I wasn’t being called to serve in the UMC, so I knew I couldn’t accept an appointment.

When I told Bishop Graves that I was leaving the UMC, he was so gracious to me. He said, “Ten to fifteen years from now, the two denominations will be very different.” Two years into that timeline, I think he’s right. In a sea of “nothing’s going to change in the UMC,” he was willing to be honest about the differences in the theology, polity, and culture of the two denominations and I’m grateful for that. I needed to hear that to move on from the UMC.

“I’ve Got You. Trust Me.”

A week or two later, I had the joy of interviewing with Mulder’s Staff-Parish Relations Committee. It just so happens that the committee was sitting in the office that’s now mine as they interviewed me. I still remember much of the joy I felt during that conversation, thinking, “Is this really happening?”

Literally hours before my final semester at Asbury Seminary began, I received a phone call from a very dear man, Stace Bottiger, offering me the role of Associate Pastor at Mulder Church. Between leaving the UMC, getting a provisional job offer from Mulder, and revival breaking out in Wilmore all in the span of a few weeks, it was as if God was saying, “I’ve got you. Trust me.”

Going through my final semester at Asbury knowing where I would be pastoring after graduation was such a relief. Before the church had made public my hiring, we did a incognito trip to Wetumpka, where we met with our incredible real estate agent, and got to explore the area for the first time. I still think fondly about that introduction to the Redland community.

At the first annual conference of the Alabama Emerald Coast Conference of the Global Methodist Church, I was ordained a deacon. While this was both exciting and affirming of my call, for most of the time I’ve known that I was called to vocational ministry, I have felt called to Word, Sacrament, and Order. This is the calling of an elder, not a deacon. The Global Methodist Book of Doctrines and Disciples explains that elders “bear authority and responsibility to proclaim God’s Word fearlessly, to teach God’s people faithfully, to administer the sacraments, and to order the life of the church so that it may be both faithful and fruitful” (¶503). This is what I feel called to.

Because of this (and, frankly, my opinion that the GMC could improve upon our ordination system by going to a two-order system instead of our current transitional ordination system), ordination as a deacon was meaningful to me but not the completion of what I felt God had called me to. One of the most meaningful things about ordination as a deacon was having the great and humbling privilege of baptizing for the first time and administering the Lord’s Supper for the first time (sacramental authority is given to deacons for their appointed ministry setting in the GMC).

In the GMC, deacons seeking ordination as elders need to be in ministry for two years prior to being ordained as elders. Over the past two years as I’ve been preparing for ordination in the GMC, I had the privilege of writing responses to the following historic questions, which have been asked by bishops of ordinands since the time of Methodism’s founder, John Wesley:

(1) Have you faith in Christ?
(2) Are you going on to perfection?
(3) Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?
(4) Are you earnestly striving after perfection in love?
(5) Are you resolved to devote yourself wholly to God and to God’s work?
(6) Do you know the General Rules of our Church?
(7) Will you keep the General Rules of our Church?
(8) Have you studied the doctrines of the Global Methodist Church?
(9) After full examination do you believe that our doctrines are in harmony with the Holy Scriptures?
(10) Will you preach and maintain them?
(11) Have you studied our form of church discipline and polity?
(12) Do you approve our church government and polity?
(13) Will you support and maintain them?
(14) Will you exercise the ministry of compassion?
(15) Will you diligently instruct the children in every place?
(16) Will you visit from house to house?
(17) Will you recommend fasting or abstinence, both by precept and example?
(18) Are you determined to employ all your time in the work of God?
(19) Are you in debt so as to embarrass you in your work?
(20) Will you observe the following directions? (a) Be diligent. Never be unemployed. Never be triflingly employed. Never trifle away time; neither spend any more time at any one place than is strictly necessary. (b) Be punctual. Do everything exactly at the time. (c) And do not mend our rules, but keep them; not for wrath, but for conscience’ sake.

I intentionally called it a “privilege” to write responses, because I truly felt that it was a privilege to share what God has done in me and how He’s helped me understand my calling to ministry. Unlike my Board of Ordained Ministry papers in the UMC, where I felt like I had to “prove myself” worthy of ordination, in writing to the Board of Ordained Ministry in the GMC, I truly felt like I could share openly and honestly about what God has been teaching me, how I understand my calling to ministry, and where I’m hoping God will continue to work in my life. God truly has been faithful in growing me over the past few years to know that I don’t have to prove myself to anyone.

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing my responses to those questions in hopes of giving you more insight into me, Methodism, and God’s calling for our lives.

After submitting my 30 pages of responses to those questions (I’ve never been one to spare words while writing, as evidenced by this blog post), I got to sit down with two members of the Board of Ordained Ministry to discuss my responses. Rather than a firing squad, this felt like a conversation and an affirmation of what God has done, is doing, and wants to do in my life. I walked away from that conversation truly blessed by the two BOM members who were kind enough to hear my stories, struggles, and successes.

The Laying on of Hands

On May 5, 2025, before the Alabama-Emerald Coast Conference and numerous friends, family, and members of Mulder Church, Bishop Scott Jones laid his hands on me and said the following:

Father Almighty, pour out your Holy Spirit on Hunter Griffin Bethea for the office and work of an elder in Christ’s holy church. Amen.

Hunter Griffin Bethea, take authority as an elder to preach the Word of God, to administer the Holy Sacraments and to order the life of the church; in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In addition to Bishop Jones and Bishop Everiste, I was joined up on the platform by my wife and daughter (who was just a couple weeks away from birth when I was ordained deacon), my mentor/friend/boss Jonathan, and my incredible Presiding Elder Janet Krantz. I’m grateful to know that there were also many others who were standing up in support of me at Saint James Church, as well as those standing with me in spirit from afar.

My wife, Haley, has never been one for the spotlight. But it only made sense that while I was ordained elder, she was there by my side on that platform. Ever since we met, she’s been by my side on this journey. She’s prayed for me while I was on the phone with SPR Chairs and Zoom calls with District Committees on Ministry. She went to seminary with me (beginning her degree after me and graduating before me). When asked, she offers feedback and wise insight. Each paragraph I’ve written here, I could add sentences about her involvement and support in it.

On January 12, 2019, I was part of something akin to an ordination service. Before God and the people gathered at First United Methodist Church in Pensacola, rather than hands being laid on me, the hands of husband and wife were joined together as Haley and I were married. The calling to be Haley’s husband is the primary calling in my life, with the exception of my calling to follow Christ. The calling to be Haley’s husband is even more primary than my calling to be an ordained elder in the Global Methodist Church. It always has been and always will be. As a mentor said to me many moons ago, “Your church will always have another pastor. Your wife will not have another husband and your kid(s) will not have another father.” When Haley and I were married, we vowed to forsake all others and be faithful to one another. To me, this wasn’t just a forsaking of other people that could be my spouse. It was a forsaking of anything that would distract me from the calling to be Haley’s husband.

The part of God’s call on my life that is being an ordained elder in the Global Methodist Church is not Haley’s calling. She’s never felt called to be a pastor’s wife. But she has felt called to be my wife, just as I’ve felt called to be her husband. As husband and wife and father and mother, we continue to discern what vision and mission God has called our family to. Part of that vision and mission is my ordination as elder in the GMC. Haley has been everything I could have asked and prayed for and so much more. As we lead our family and community together, I couldn’t be more thankful to have a true partner in this work.

I think back lots to my response to God that “I can’t do that to my wife and kids.” God has taught me that my calling is not to protect my wife and kids from life. That’s His job. But it is my job to follow Him faithfully and to love and serve them well. I pray I continue to grow in that trust.

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When Bishop Jones laid his hands on my head on May 5, 2025, I couldn’t help but cry. Tears of joy and relief and awe and amazement flowed as I thought of all that God has done in the past decade of my life as I’ve pursued God’s calling of ordination on my life. In just 10 years, I’ve seen God part waters I thought couldn’t be parted. I’ve seen Him do incredible things in my life, healing me from things I thought I’d be afflicted with on the day I die. I’ve had front- and second-row seats to seeing how God builds a denomination from the ground-up through His faithful servants. If that’s what God can do in just 10 years, what can He do in my life in 50 years? What can He do in generations of the Global Methodist Church? What can He do in millennia of the Church universal?

I love how Eugene Peterson paraphrases Ephesians 3:20-21 in The Message:

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

Throughout my ordination week, a hymn was on repeat in my heart:

Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with thee.
Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not;
As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.

And now, in the days of editing this post, Tenth Avenue North released a new song with these lyrics:

I don′t know what I’m doing
I don′t know where I’m going
I thought I’d have more figured out by now
But all the street lamps on my road keep burning out
But I′m learning to trust learning to trust You
Learning to trust learning to trust You
Learning to trust learning to trust Your heart
While I′m running with You in the dark.

If I’ve learned one thing following this part of my call to be an ordained elder in the Global Methodist Church, it’s this: learning to trust God even in the dark. If I learn one thing after being ordained elder in the Global Methodist Church, it’s this: learning to trust God even in the dark.

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

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If you read this whole blog post… Wow! I’m super grateful. I’ve written some other posts about pastoring and the Global Methodist Church that I think you’ll enjoy. Here they are:

“The Two Preachers We Need”
“My Grandchildren’s Denomination”
“Why Do We Ordain?”

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