Special to United Methodist Insight | July 29, 2026
The book, Constitutional Grace by Rev. Dr. Luan-Vu “Lui” Tran, appears at the perfect time for the United Methodist Church as it begins to make the most of its recent constitutional changes.
Globally, United Methodist Church members gather every four years to worship, celebrate missions, elect global board and committee members, and write church law. The gathering is called a General Conference and includes attendees from all over the world numbering over 800. Due to COVID-19, the 2020 General Conference was postponed until 2024; therefore, that Conference is known as the 2020/2024 General Conference. United Methodist Church law is found in a book entitled The Book of Discipline (“Discipline”), and the law that was changed at the 2020/2024 General Conference is found in the 2020/2024 edition of the Discipline.
While many people only think of the 2020/2024 General Conference as the one that changed the church’s ruling to accept homosexuality, another very significant vote created a new worldwide structure of the church. It divided the global United Methodist Church administratively into nine regions. This change required constitutional amendments; a process that requires more voting than just at General Conference.
Once a proposed change to the Constitution is approved by a two-thirds majority vote of the General Conference delegates, the exact wording of the proposed change is sent for a vote by the annual conferences–the administrative basic body of the church that includes elected members from all the local churches. The vote taken at each annual conference is kept secret and sent to the Council of Bishops for canvassing. If two-thirds of all members present and voting at all the annual conferences approve the proposed constitutional amendment, then the Council of Bishops announces that the new provision has passed and is in effect. The Council of Bishops announced the approval rate of 91.6 percent for the amendments dealing with regionalization on November 5, 2025. With that declaration, the Constitution now contains the Regionalization provisions.
As with all new laws, however, the good intention of their creation can only be effective in the laws’ implementation. In Dr. Tran’s book, he takes these new constitutional provisions and skillfully directs how the United Methodist Church can implement regionalization to its fullest potential.
Many people, upon hearing the book’s title, immediately viewed Constitutional Grace as an oxymoron. Constitutional law is usually perceived as a compilation of hard, set-in-stone, unbending mandates. Grace, on the other hand, at its core, is receiving love, kindness, or a gift not worked for, earned, or deserved. Dr. Tran explains the apparent dichotomy in this way: “The phrase ‘constitutional grace’ names the conviction at the center of this book. A constitution cannot save a church. A Book of Discipline cannot create holiness. A Judicial Council (the highest court of the UMC) decision cannot heal every wound. A regional conference cannot manufacture fellowship or communion. But faithful order can serve the work of grace. It can restrain arbitrary power, protect the vulnerable, clarify authority, preserve shared doctrine, make room for contextual mission, and help a wounded church practice accountability without abandoning love.”
The important beginning work of implementing “regionalization” will take place at the October 2026 Leadership Gathering in Calgary with global attendees. Then regionalization will be further implemented at the 2028 General Conference. The actual constitutional changes are extensive, and since the Council on Bishops did not canvass the voting results until after the publication of the 2020/2024 Discipline, the actual new constitutional language appears in a separate Addendum/Errata to the 2020/2024 Discipline.
The first new constitutional provision reads: “There shall be regional conferences for the work of the worldwide Church and, if necessary, provisional regional conferences, all with such powers, duties, and privileges as are hereinafter set forth, provided that in the United Methodist Church there shall be no regional or jurisdiction conference based on any ground other than geographical division.” This sentence eliminated all central conferences, which were the administrative bodies outside the United States, and called for the United States to be a Regional Conference, administratively equal to all other eight regional conferences throughout the world.
Therefore, the United Methodist Church is no longer U.S.-centric.
In his roadmap outlining the steps necessary to achieve the comprehensive implementation of regionalization, Dr. Tran guides the reader in four movements.
Part 1 gives the reader the foundation of United Methodist theology, which is largely based on John Wesley’s theology, which can be read as the basis for the belief that grace takes the form of a disciplined covenant. The term “Methodists,” while initially meant as a derogatory name, was based on our early founders having a “method” in acting out their faith. Dr. Tran points out that this regionalization format is not just a new procedure, but actually part of the covenant among all United Methodists. He concludes that discipline, laws, and order are not the enemy of grace, but rather ways grace becomes visible, durable, and missional. His way of basing Methodist theology on historic terms clearly shows that regionalization is not really a “new” way of thinking. Ecclesiastes 1:9 says it all: “… there is nothing new under the sun.”
Part II discusses the actual architecture of regionalization. Dr. Tran describes what has changed and what has stayed the same. There will be a new 2028 Discipline created by the 2028 General Conference, which will contain all law that is distinctly connectional. Then each of the 9 Regional Conferences, which are required to meet within one year after the General Conference, will create their own regional Books of Discipline, adding their own administrative processes to meet each region’s needs. There will be only one Constitution and one set of Restrictive Rules, which protect Methodist Doctrinal Standards, the episcopacy, and the right of clergy and lay members to trial by a committee and appeal.
Dr. Tran then discusses the United States Regional Conference which is now being planned for either the late 2028 or the spring of 2029. He then addresses the impact of the Regional Conferences on annual conferences, districts, local churches, and their annual charge conferences.
In Part III, Dr. Tran becomes even more specific, giving guidance and implementation details to delegates and leaders who will be attending the 2028 General Conference. He interprets the changes for the episcopacy, itineracy, unified superintendency, and Judicial Council jurisdiction all as a constitutional communion.
Part IV explains how the United Methodist Church can heal after the season of disaffiliations and wounds resulting from its homosexuality decisions. Dr. Tran describes how a polycentric church can not only survive but thrive. He explains how there can be unity and connectionalism without uniformity and how the church can still hold its members accountable without being arbitrary.
This book is not just a summary, nor a set of suggestions of how to proceed to implement regionalization. It is a CALL to all United Methodist laity and clergy, all local churches, and all levels of conferences to embrace the spiritual purpose of the new constitutional order. Dr. Tran concludes his analysis with the following wisdom: “Constitutional grace is grace ordered by covenant. It is grace disciplined for mission. It is grace humble enough to accept limits, brave enough to share power, patient enough to heal wounds, and spacious enough for a worldwide church. It is not a finished achievement. It is a calling. The question before the church is whether it will merely implement a new polity or learn to inhabit a renewed covenant. May the church’s answer be grace.”
Constitutional Grace: Regionalization and the Future of The United Methodist Church is available as paperback ($15.99) and an eBook ($7.99) on UMChurchLaw.com.
Evelynn Caterson served on the Judicial Council, the UMC's highest court, from 1992 to 2000. A practicing attorney, she became chancellor of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference in 2009 and has been serving in that role ever since. She has been a member of Absecon United Methodist Church since 1967 and was elected delegate to General Conference in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2019.