Bishops Zero in on Challenges Ahead

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Nov. 18, 2024 | ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. (UM News)

Key points:

  • Bishops discussed ministry needs ahead as The United Methodist Church starts a new season after this year’s General Conference.
  • Among the topics they tackled were Wesleyan teachings about mission, the denomination’s financial challenges and the continued need to care for immigrants.
  • Bishops also are moving forward with plans for a 2026 leadership gathering to envision the denomination’s future.

The United Methodist Council of Bishops began a new chapter in denominational life by addressing challenges both within the church and around the globe.

The Nov. 3-8 fall meeting marked the first time the denomination’s bishops had gathered since a historic General Conference, which saw the church eliminate denomination-wide restrictions related to LGBTQ people and allow for greater freedom on marriage and ordination standards.

Bishops hope this year’s legislative assembly will set up United Methodists for a future focused more on their shared mission in Christ than internal disputes. The theme for the week and each day’s morning worship was “One — With Christ, With Each Other, In Ministry.”

During closing worship, Council of Bishops President Tracy S. Malone encouraged her fellow bishops to continue to abide with each other in Christ as they face the ministry needs ahead.

“Let us continue to live into what it truly means to be a church for all, a church of love, a church of welcome, a church of hospitality, a church that is inclusive, a church that is worldwide, a church that makes space for difference, a church that respects the dignity of all persons,” said Malone, who also leads the Indiana Conference.

“Let us continue to shepherd and work and dream and imagine that church together.”

The November meeting saw bishops address some of what that work entails, including a Wesleyan understanding of mission, a recognition of church finances and care for immigrants after the U.S. presidential election.

Here is an overview of the bishops’ actions.

On immigration

Retired Bishop Minerva Carcaño, chair of the bishops’ Immigration Task Force, called her colleagues to uphold the denomination’s longtime commitment to migrants, especially after the election of a U.S. president who promises to use the military to conduct mass deportations. She said the task force is assembling resources to help United Methodists stand firm.

“Migrants who have come to the United States under forced circumstances are here, fleeing extreme poverty, hunger, political and religious persecution, war, cartel and gang violence, and now the severe impact of climate change,” Carcaño said.

These new neighbors sustain the U.S. economy — paying taxes and doing difficult, often low-paying jobs, she said.

“They serve our families, care for our children and our elderly,” she said. “They clean up our homes. They landscape our property. They build our roads. They make the food that we eat.”

She added that during the week she had spoken with immigrants currently working at Epworth by the Sea Conference Center, the United Methodist retreat center where the bishops were meeting.

With President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to deport millions of people starting on his first day in office and even remove birthright citizenship, Carcaño urged bishops to hold fast to United Methodist teachings.

This year’s General Conference overwhelmingly readopted and expanded on resolutions calling for United Methodists to show hospitality toward immigrants. General Conference is the only body that officially speaks for the denomination.

“We are called to lead God’s people to renew our commitment to welcome the migrants,” she said, “to provide sanctuary for our migrant brothers and sisters and resources for their defense, to stand against anti-immigrant laws grounded in racism and xenophobia.”

She said bishops should be “a shield of protection for migrants, whom Christ himself calls us to welcome” in Matthew 25.

Iowa Conference Bishop Kennetha Bigham-Tsai told the bishops that she was deeply moved by Carcaño’s report and planned to use it as a teaching tool. She added that some bishops already are considering ways to do more outreach among migrants in their areas.

One such possibility she mentioned was to be present among migrants on Epiphany, when Christians celebrate Christ’s light made manifest to people who, like the Magi, may have traveled far.

On finances

The bishops also discussed ongoing concerns about the long-precarious Episcopal Fund, which supports their work and their office staff.

The General Council on Finance and Administration, the United Methodist finance agency, recently reported that overall giving to the denominational funds was down as of the end of September, compared to the same time last year. Specifically, the Episcopal Fund collection rate was 48.7% of requested apportionments for this year, down 4.4% — or $2.1 million — compared to 2023. Apportionments are shares of giving from annual conferences, organizational bodies that in turn ask for apportionments from their local churches.

The denomination has reduced its total number of bishops, but the Episcopal Fund is still at risk of going into the red in the future if giving rates do not improve.

Mississippi Conference Bishop Sharma Lewis, who chairs the bishops’ finance committee, announced that the bishops plan to form a task force and invite the finance agency’s staff to discuss ways to improve giving.

“Right now, we do know that we’re in tough times,” Lewis said. “And we can be proactive in having U.S. bishops and the central conference bishops, along with GCFA staff, come together and really discuss how we can share in the best practices.”

On Wesley and mission

The Rev. Paul W. Chilcote — a United Methodist elder, missionary, author and noted scholar of Methodism founder John Wesley — led the bishops in an all-day session on their formational work around the church’s mission.

For renewal, Chilcote suggested moving from a church in the “PITS” to one that follows Wesley’s “TIPS.”

By the acronym PITS, Chilcote means a church focused on Preservation, Institution, Theory and a Separation from other people’s needs. With the acronym TIPS, Chilcote suggested Wesley’s different way of living out the Christian faith in community. Wesley, the scholar said, reoriented the church’s focus from preservation to Transformation of the future, from institution to the Incarnation of Christ at work in the world, from theory to spiritual Practice and from separation to Solidarity with others.

John and his brother Charles Wesley “were all about the rediscovery of church as mission,” Chilcote said.

“It’s not that we have a program that we call ‘mission in the life of the church,’” he said. “The whole work of the church is our partnership with God in God’s mission in the life of the world.”

In other actions:

  • The bishops moved forward with plans for a leadership gathering in 2026. The bishops want to bring together church leaders from around the globe to pray and discern a vision for the denomination’s future disciple-making. Malone, in consultation with the Council of Bishops executive committee, plans to announce the design team for the leadership gathering during the week of Dec. 2.
  • The bishops accepted the challenge from the United Methodist Commission on Archives and History to participate in a Sand Creek Healing Walk to remember the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre that killed more than 230 members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. The walk was a way for the bishops to participate from a distance in the separate Sand Creek Healing Run held in Colorado. The United Methodist history agency challenged the bishops to run or walk a collective 173 miles during their daily workouts. Altogether, the bishops logged 627.49 miles, and many expressed interest in doing the same program in their annual conferences.
  • The bishops also made plans to share best practices in responding to hurricanes, typhoons and other natural disasters. This comes after Hurricanes Helene and Milton battered the southern United States and multiple typhoons have caused destruction across the Philippines.

“We serve a God who is able to do far more than what any of us can ever think of, dream or even imagine,” Malone said during closing worship.

“And our God — who is the head of this church, who is the head and the center of our lives — will give us the provision if we would only abide and trust in God, trust in God’s promises, but also trust in each other and trust in the people called United Methodist.”

Learn more

The Council of Bishops has a press release offering an overview of its fall meeting.

The bishops also released a statement on the U.S. election.

More UM News coverage of the Council of Bishops meeting gathered on United Methodist Insight:

Heather Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News.