The 48th annual conference of the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe was held from the 22nd to 24th of August at Masvingo Teachers College being hosted by Masvingo District. The conference business was carried out and critical decisions were made to ushering the church into a new season of new leadership. The Presiding Bishop said that this was an opportunity for the leaders to encourage each other, learn from one another and deepen their understanding of God’s will and purpose for our church. Conference also took cognizance of the great work that was done by the outgoing leadership and tributes were done to mark the end of a fruitful journey that was ran by the connexional executive under the leadership of Presiding Bishop Revd G.T. Mawire. The conference elected the Presiding Bishop, Connexional Lay President, Connexional treasurer as well as the Harare East District Bishop.
In his last address to the conference the presiding Bishop echoed that, “I would like once again, to express my gratitude to God for His people called Methodists for the honour given to me to lead this Church for 5 years. I give glory and honour to God and proclaim with Samuel 7:12, “Ebenezer the lord has taken me this far”. Your love and support during my tenure was incredible. This was evident in your enthusiasm during my visits to the Circuits, Institutions, Districts and Fellowships. It was also evident in the adherence to the directives from the Connexional office (Wesley House). There were many competent people who could have taken this position and having served this term. I am also convinced that God knew that 5 years would be enough. Yes, leadership has inherent ups and downs but together we sailed through. Glory be to God.”
The Connexional lay President in his Last conference address reiterated the failures and successes that were encountered during his tenure he said that, “It is not my intention to list out all that we have accomplished in the past 5 years. I believe they speak loudly for themselves.” He further stated that, “I have also asked myself what we could have done better, and the following quickly come out loud and clear: statistics, Southern Africa Methodist University (SAMU) and pension amount for clergy.”
Being an elective conference all the processes were done with due diligence and the Conference elected Revd. Simbarashe Sithole to be the Presiding Bishop, Mrs S. Mashiri as the Connexional Lay president, Mr Godfrey Mavhankeni as the Connexional Treasurer and Revd. Jeremiah Mangiza was elected as the Bishop for Harare East District.
By Revd A. Mpaso
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