General Conference Round-Up: Global Structures and Leaders

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This is the first of several posts presenting a roundup of General Conference actions related to the foci of this blog. This first post looks at the General Conference actions related to global structures and leaders in The United Methodist Church.

General Conference approved continued work on a global Book of Disciplineand global Social Principles. Proposals for a US central conference died in committee.

General Conference approved five more bishops for Africa starting in 2020, going with the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters' recommendation rather than a motion to add two new bishops immediately to Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

General Conference approved a provisional central conference for Southeast Asia and Mongolia, allowing missions there to go forward with the process of forming Annual Conferences and thereby beginning to determine their own pastoral leadership. It also approved a provisional Rwanda Annual Conferenceand deferred the creation of a Uganda Annual Conference to the West Africa Central Conference.

During General Conference, the Judicial Council elected N. Oswald Tweh, Sr., a Liberian, as the head of the Council, the first from outside the US to hold that position.

Responding to a request for a declaratory decision from the General Conference, the Judicial Council ruled that a Central Conference as a body, not its bishops, has the authority to set the time and place of its meetings, addressing questions regarding the 2016 meeting of the Congo Central Conference.

The next roundup, which will be posted next week, will look at actions related to mission work.

Dr. David W. Scott, a United Methodist layman, serves as assistant professor of religion at Ripon College in Ripon, Wis. He curates the collaborative blog UM & Global on behalf of United Methodist Professors of Mission.