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Bill Kyle is the current chair of our Staff-Parish Relations Committee, which is responsible for making sure our staff and congregation are aligned well. He is responsible for having led the church through the process of finding a new pastor, as well as more recently, finding a new administrative assistant.

His spiritual maturity and personal capability was well known to Brother Lauren, our previous pastor, who now serves as the Conference Superintendent of the Mississippi-West Tennessee Annual Conference of the Global Methodist Church. When a delegation position opened up for the 2026 General Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, Lauren knew who to call upon.

Bill retired at the start of this year. He was looking forward to relaxation. The Lord did not have much relaxation in mind for Bill, as the church, Gideons, and a few other commitments have required a lot of him. Yet when the time came to serve on a global scale, Bill did not refuse.

For many months prior to the gathering, Bill met with a couple dozen other delegates from our conference, under the leadership of the newly elected bishop, Paul Lawler, to consider the different piece of legislation (more than 400) before the conference. He was given a position on the Doctrine & Sacraments legislative committee, which was given the heavy work of determining what it is that Global Methodists will believe in writing. 

The final product of his committee's work was the adoption of a new Articles of Faith document, which is something more than a synthesis of the Methodist Articles of Religion and the EUB's Confession of Faith, though it draws heavily from both historic documents.

In his time in South Africa, Bill connected with hundreds of people from across our new connection. The Global Methodist Church now represents more than 7,200 congregations from at least 30 nations. He got a firsthand sense of this, communing with people from all over the world. He received personal invitations to now visit the Phillipines, where he has new friends. He had visits over dinner with Christians living in areas of persecution from Muslims. 

Our church is blessed to have someone who was able to represent us and our tradition so adeptly. He and his colleagues did great work to discern the will of God for our connectional covenant body. We are proud of our brother in Christ.

It is our intention to spotlight Bill at the start of each worship service for the next few weeks so that he can better include us in the work being done around the world by our prayers and gifts. Please say a prayer of thanksgiving for Bill's travels, and pay attention to him as he works to better include us in the life of the larger church