Follow General Conference from Johannesburg

The Alabama Emerald Coast Conference joyfully welcomes the Rev. Paul Lawler, elected at the 2026 General Conference of the Global Methodist Church to serve as bishop of Episcopal Area 7. His election is especially meaningful for the conferences he will serve: before delegates gathered in Johannesburg, the Area 7 Committee on Episcopacy interviewed candidates and ranked Lawler as its first choice.

Area 7 brings together the Alabama Emerald Coast, South Georgia, North Georgia, Central Europe, Zambia, Northern Nigeria, and Venezuela Annual Conferences — a remarkable expression of the worldwide character of the Global Methodist Church.

Lawler comes to the episcopacy after more than four decades of pastoral and missional ministry. A graduate of Asbury University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1984, and Asbury Theological Seminary, where he received his Master of Divinity in 1988, he began pastoral ministry while still in seminary. He served as associate pastor at Cynthiana First United Methodist Church in Kentucky and later at Tuscumbia First United Methodist Church in Alabama.

In 1991, Lawler became the founding senior pastor of Chase Valley Church in Huntsville, Alabama, serving there for sixteen years. That experience helped shape a conviction that has remained central to his ministry: healthy churches are called not simply to gather people, but to make disciples who make disciples and to multiply communities of faith. The congregation grew to an average weekly worship attendance of more than 400, with many new believers.

The North Alabama Conference later honored Lawler with the Denman Evangelism Award for his work in reaching new people for Christ and leading local-church growth.

In 2007, Lawler became Senior Pastor of Christ Church Birmingham, where he served for fifteen years. His ministry there combined congregational revitalization, intentional discipleship, evangelism, prayer, service to the poor, and an expanding vision for global mission.

He also helped lead the congregation into ambitious church-planting efforts overseas. What began as a commitment to help plant 100 churches ultimately contributed to the planting of hundreds of congregations, particularly among unreached people groups.

Across more than two decades of such work, Lawler has participated in church-planting movements that have led thousands of first-generation believers from Muslim, Hindu, animist, and atheist backgrounds to faith in Jesus Christ.

His concern for vulnerable people has also been a defining part of his ministry. Lawler and his brother, Patrick, worked with the Compassionate Hope Foundation to establish two Patricia B. Hammonds Homes of Hope in Thailand, named in memory of their mother.

The homes serve children who have been trafficked or are vulnerable to trafficking, providing shelter, food, education, discipleship, worship, and opportunities for higher education or vocational training.

Lawler also served on the board of The WellHouse, a ministry serving survivors of human trafficking, and contributed to the book She Is Safe, which tells stories of Gospel transformation among trafficking victims.

In 2022, Paul and his wife, Missy, were called to Memphis, Tennessee, where he became Senior Pastor of Christ Church Memphis, now Christ Methodist Church Memphis.

Soon after his arrival, he helped guide the congregation through its departure from the United Methodist Church and into the Global Methodist Church. In Memphis, Lawler has continued to emphasize prayer, clear mission and vision, evangelism training, intentional discipleship, and the equipping of laypeople for ministry.

Lawler's leadership has also extended beyond the local church. In the Global Methodist Church, he has served on the Connectional Council, as vice-chair of the Kingdom Advancement Commission, and on the denomination's Strategic Planning Task Force.

Through Kingdom Advancement, he has helped shape work in evangelism, church multiplication, mission mobilization, ministry among unreached people groups, and disaster response.

The word “movement” is central to Lawler's vision. In his episcopal nominee materials, he wrote that his greatest hope for the Global Methodist Church is that it become a movement marked by multiplying disciples and multiplying churches.

He has consistently argued that the church must renew existing congregations, recover disciple-making that reproduces itself, plant new churches, and remain adaptable to the very different cultural settings in which Global Methodists live and serve.

He describes episcopal leadership in similarly missional terms. For Lawler, a bishop is called to embody and advance the mission of the church: making disciples of Jesus Christ and spreading scriptural holiness across the globe.

Bishops, he has written, must guard the doctrine of the church, shepherd its people, offer theological guidance, equip the saints, support conference superintendents, and continually call the church beyond maintenance toward mission.

His leadership philosophy is deeply shaped by Ephesians 4 and the conviction that ordained leaders exist to equip God's people for the work of ministry.

Paul and Missy share a deep commitment to family and mission. They have four adult children, along with sons- and daughters-in-law and grandchildren. Lawler enjoys family time, the outdoors, reading, writing, and a good cup of coffee.

As Bishop-elect Lawler prepares to serve Episcopal Area 7, the Alabama Emerald Coast Conference gives thanks for the breadth of experience he brings and for the unmistakable thread running through his ministry: a desire to see people come to Christ, grow as disciples, discover their calling, and join in God's mission to the world.

We welcome Bishop-elect Paul Lawler with joy and look forward with prayerful expectation to the years ahead.