Connectional Table’s U.S. Regional Conference Legislation Now Available

September 13, 2019

1:01 PM

US Regional Conference

The Connectional Table is publishing in English its legislative petition to create a U.S. Regional Conference, as well as a one-page frequently asked questions sheet and a narrative booklet. The materials will soon be available in other languages.

The CT, who collaborated closely with Wespath on this legislation, shares the legislation and educational materials in advance of the 2020 General Conference as a reflection of the value it places in transparency and open communication. The CT also hopes that it will be helpful to delegations and other groups as they prepare for GC2020.

The legislation to create a U.S. Regional Conference (USRC) aims to ease the burden of U.S. legislation on General Conference and give U.S. churches parity with those in central conferences. This will also shorten the duration of General Conference and save the church millions of dollars.

“We are pleased that this proposal is going forward as an important contribution to the connectional dialogue; allowing more time for General Conference to focus on matters that impact our global church," says Barbara Boigegrain, General Secretary of Wespath. "The General Church has spent too much time on administrative, tax, legal and benefit matters that only impact the United States. This proposal creates parity with processes of the Central Conferences. For instance, U.S. clergy benefit plans are an example of something that should be handled regionally, as they are in all other regions of the church, rather than consume the resources of a global body like the General Conference.”

Comments (9)

Comment Feed

Leadership needs to embrace this motto

"Love God. Love People. Don't Do Dumb Crap" https://revshanebishop.com/2019/09/16/we-want-out-the-loudest-voice-the-umc-isnt-hearing/

Introducing this legislation at this time is just one more layer of dumb crap because the timing is awful!

The article the motto is attached to goes along with my prediction that it will ultimately be rank and file laity who determine the future of the UMC because we are all tired of the dumb crap! My goal is to keep attending Sunday morning worship through GC202 to give it a chance. In the meantime, I will live my life with the expectation that the UMC along with the local church will go progressive if for no other reason than rank and file laity--especially of the traditionalist variety--is tired of all the dumb crap that keeps the sexuality question irresolvable until General Conference comes up with the answer that will satisfy leadership's goal for the denomination. A huge lesson to be learned in all this is that power corrupts, even in the church. And way too much of leadership has become its own free-wheeling seat of power because there is absolutely no direct accountability back to anybody or anything! And I say that will all respect for the current set of leadership whose only role in this is that they happen to be the unfortunate ones to be in power when this unsustainable denomination, which was launched with the fatal flaw of theological plurality, finally reached critical mass.

betsy more than 5 years ago

Regional conference

The meat of the proposal is right here. We create an American Conference that is not answerable to any other authority. And we will create our own judicial council, which will be packed with sympathetic progressives, to do whatever we please.

“To make such rules and regulations for the administration of the Church’s work within its boundaries, including such changes and adaptations of the General Book of Discipline as the conditions in the regional conference may require, subject to the powers that have been or shall be vested in the General Conference.
2. To appoint a judicial court to determine legal questions arising on the rules, regulations, and such revised, adapted, or new sections of the regional conference Discipline enacted by the regional conference.
3. Such other duties and powers as may be conferred by the General Conference, provided that the
regional conference has no authority over duties assigned to the jurisdictional conferences in”

This proposal will completely destroy our global connection in a fruitless quest to maintain a pseudo global church which will be composed of autonomous entities that will soon drift away from each other. This is the coffin in which The UMC will be buried.

Kevin more than 5 years ago

There are larger problems to be dealt with

I agree with this in principle and fully understand its need but it does absolutely nothing to resolve the current theological impasse that has the future of the denomination in question. Also, given how they handled the Way Forward process pre and post GC2019, I do not have much faith or trust in anything that comes out of a denominational leadership that has been cowtowing to progressives, allowing the sexuality question to become a do or die issue despite the fact that General Conference has consistently settled the question multiple times.

betsy more than 5 years ago

Bad Plan

If your a traditionalist this plan leaves you out in the cold. It will guarantee progressive control over the us and guarantee the driving out of traditional clergy and laity. It will guarantee the umc in the us will begin to die quickly like the rest of the progressive us denominations. A boon for the Baptist and non denominational churches. Maybe the Wesleyan, Nazarene, and AOG will pick up our empty churches and grow.

Scott more than 5 years ago

Who is doing well?

It was reported back in May that the Southern Baptists were at their lowest membership level in 30 years. You raise an interesting point---are denominations with codified doctrines and views on every social issue really necessary? Are non denominational churches the way of the future?

David more than 5 years ago

I'm not convinced on non denom

There's a lot of good that we can do collectively that we simply can't do as an individual. That also applies to the next level (a congregation can do good, but can't have the same impact as a denomination - think UMCOR, non denominational churches simply can't get the same reach).

That's not to say that denominations are the only/best way, but that there's a distinct advantage to denominations that non denoms can't easily achieve.

JR more than 5 years ago

Agreed, but...

Yes, denominational local churches have a built-in connectional advantage over non-denoms, but there are many parachurch organizations that enable those non-denoms that are serious about ministry far beyond the local church to do so. Small, missionally oriented denominations like the Salvation Army are likewise leveraged in their capacity by individual and congregational support for both disaster and ongoing missional work.

John more than 5 years ago

It seems to me...

That this fits what the African reps want (unity, equal footing) and what the Filipino reps want (unity, equal footing) ... and then leaves the WCA/Good News folks wondering where they fit.

Constitutional Amendments are a heavy lift, if I recall correctly. I'm going to be watching how this plays out really carefully.

JR more than 5 years ago

Committee

Is a constitutional amendment required to form a committee of GC (Stage 1)?

Anonymous more than 5 years ago