Delegates to the 61st General Conference (GC) Session in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, voted to accept the recommendation of the Nominating Committee to reelect Ted N. C. Wilson as president of the General Conference on June 6. With their vote, delegates confirmed Wilson, who has been president of the denomination since 2010, for the 2022-2025 period. It will be his third term as president.

“Our goal is to maintain focus on what God has called the remnant church to do,” Wilson said. “But a single person cannot do it. We are a team of almost 22 million members.”

About the Process

The Nominating Committee includes more than 260 members from among the delegates of every major church region and the General Conference. Members nominated to the committee by their respective regional caucuses on or before June 5 met on the afternoon of June 6 to discuss the first item, which historically has been the nomination of the president.

At the end of the June 6 evening business session, retired GC vice president Lowell Cooper, who earlier in the day had been elected as president of the Nominating Committee, went to the podium to present the body’s first report. “We’ve been hard at work during several hours,” Cooper said. “We had the opportunity to discuss several names as potential candidates for the position of General Conference president.”

Cooper explained to delegates why they spent several hours to come to a decision. “It took us a while to get organized, to understand protocol,” he said. It included making sure the electronic voting app was working properly and that those members participating through Zoom videoconferencing could interact with the in-person members.

“It took some time to get acquainted with parliamentary procedures,” Cooper added, “in a group that has several different languages and cultures, and the necessities of translators. We’ve had some time in working ourselves into a team.”

Recommendation to the Floor

Cooper shared that the Nominating Committee felt that God has blessed the church with leaders. So, “after discussion, we voted, and the Nominating Committee has a recommendation to bring for your consideration tonight on a vote on one name that we took,” he said before calling Nominating Committee secretary Magdiel Pérez Schulz to present that report and recommendation with the delegates.

After Pérez Schulz presented the name of Wilson for the position, delegates voted electronically to approve the recommendation.

For more information on the Session, as well as for instructions on how to attend and access the livestream and other media, visit gcsession.org/.

Updated: 6/7/21