Proposal would pave way for U.S. regional conference

By Linda Green*

SPRINGMAID BEACH, S.C. (UMNS)-A task force examining the global nature of The United Methodist Church has proposed four changes to the denomination's constitution in an effort to make regional and jurisdictional structures similar worldwide.

The constitutional changes, to be presented to the 2008 General Conference, would pave the way to make the church in the United States a regional body, similar to the church's units in Africa, Europe and Asia. Currently, the structure gives the U.S. church greater influence than its overseas counterparts.

The proposals were part of a May 3 report approved by the Council of Bishops after a presentation by Bishops Ann Sherer and Scott Jones. They are part of a seven-member task force exploring the nature of the church, including relationships among United Methodist annual conferences and bishops, ecumenical relationships, and ties to autonomous and affiliated churches.

The interim report from the Global Nature of the Church Committee to General Conference includes legislation calling for continued study of the church's worldwide mission and ministry and the role the denomination could play in modeling a new way of being the church in the world. The United Methodist Church has congregations in 38 countries.

"We believe God needs a church that is more fully ready for worldwide mission and ministry," Sherer said. The proposed changes would equip the church "to do the mission in ministry to which God calls us," she said.

Why now?
"Recent developments in world Christianity call for a new emphasis on a concept of mission that addresses a world community and would not be impeded by national, cultural and economic barriers," according to the task force report.

Sherer said the exploration of the church's worldwide nature is the result of new church initiatives, mission cooperation and church growth, especially in Africa; new initiatives of the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table; the possibility of churches in the Philippines considering autonomy and seeking greater relationship with other Methodist bodies in Asia; and the 2004 General Conference's authorized story of the relationship between the Methodist churches in Latin American and the Caribbean and The United Methodist Church.

"With those four winds blowing," Sherer said, the task force is proposing legislation for broader conversation in the next quadrennium. "If we are a worldwide church by theology, how completely are we living this theology?" she asked. "The United Methodist Church is on a journey, and we are continuing, changing and becoming."

The legislation
The global dimensions of The United Methodist Church stem from the strong missionary outreach of its predecessor denominations. Its ministries of personal and social development have manifested themselves "in a church implanted on five continents," said the Rev. Robert Harman, a retired pastor in Northern Illinois who is quoted in the foreword of the worldwide ministry document.

In his 2006 paper for the Connectional Table, Harman said, "the challenge has always been, and remains today, learning how to accommodate or enable the witness of this global community of faith within the connectional spirit and structure of Methodism."

Legislation being forwarded to the 2008 General Conference requests the task force and the Connectional Table to jointly continue their study of the church's worldwide nature and report to the 2012 legislative assembly on the church's characteristics and how the United States could become a regional conference while retaining its current jurisdictional composition.

"While we celebrate the worldwide nature of our ministry as United Methodists, we have to confess that too often we failed to operate as the body of Christ as described in 1 Corinthians 12 …," Sherer said.

The proposed legislation would clear a path for broader conversation to "help shape the church in a way that will enable it to faithfully and justly embody our life together," she said.

"Changes in the constitution make us nimble," said Bishop Judith Craig, retired, of Powell, Ohio. "It positions us to be more flexible and frees us to move if we decide to move. It is a signal that we are thinking in new and open ways."

Craig was one of 127 bishops, active and retired, hearing the proposal during the April 29-May 4 council meeting outside Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Bishop Patrick Streiff of the Central and Southern Europe Area said the proposal to make the United States a regional conference "gives possibility to separate U.S. business from the church worldwide" at General Conference. "Part of the church outside the U.S. is 30 percent, and it is just not possible to continue General Conference as we have."

The report, which urges Christians to be "a counter culture," says that the U.S. influence in churchwide governance, as evident in the Book of Resolutions, is damaging to the church both inside and outside the United States. "It disempowers central conferences from being fully actualized within the body and allows the church in the United States to escape responsibility from dealing with its internal issues."

The document says that wholeness reflects the value of all people. "To be whole is to value all. Our structure must reflect this value and prompt us to ever-greater degrees of responsibility for reflecting God's reign in the church and the world."

The proposal
The proposal to General Conference is to study what the church will look like in the future and to enable it to live more fully into its worldwide nature and reality, according to Jones. "It is the first step in a long journey."

The proposal does not change the number, purpose and function of jurisdictional conferences; the way bishops are elected or assigned; the purpose or mission of any churchwide agency; the size or power of General Conference; the way the Social Principles are decided upon or amended; or the apportionment formulas and allocations, Jones said.

The four changes "strike out of places in the constitution language that says that central conferences are only for areas of the church outside the United States," he said.

The structure envisioned is that every annual conference will belong to a central conference and that "any central conference, if it so chooses, can divide itself into jurisdictions," opening the possibility of the United States becoming a central conference in 2012. If the church in the United States takes that action, Jones said, its jurisdictional structure presumably would remain untouched.

Jones said the constitutional amendments will provide for a future General Conference to make that kind of change so that every United Methodist annual conference would belong to a central conference and participate in General Conference.

In the proposed legislation, reference to central conferences in the constitution would be changed to regional conferences. Several bishops said the word "central" is not grammatically correct, carries a negative connation historically and is meaningless.

The Council of Bishops also approved a resolution called "A Commitment to Unity in Mission and Ministry," emphasizing commitment to four areas in the future course of the denomination's work and life: leadership development, congregational development, ministry with the poor and global health. The resolution was approved by several boards and commissions of the general church agencies this spring, signaling their intention to collaborate closely on the denomination's priorities.
*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn.