Global Regionalization Aims to Give U.S. Church Same Privilege as International Conferences

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United Methodist Insight Exclusive. All Rights Reserved 2022

Of the three interjurisdictional resolutions adopted by the five U.S. regions during their 2022 sessions, the one least appreciated – but perhaps the most influential – may well be the resolution endorsing the Christmas Covenant, briefly described on its website as "an equitable structure of global regionalization."

Created by an ad hoc group of international United Methodists in late 2019 around the same time that the more well-known Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation, the Christmas Covenant seeks to accomplish three major goals:

  • Maintain UMC unity by expanding upon authority privileges already granted to the non-U.S. regions known as Central Conferences;
  • Reduce the U.S.-centric nature of most General Conference legislation to give Central Conferences more equitable participation;
  • Reorganize the U.S. arm of the UMC into its own regional body.

The Rev. Neal Christie serves as a member of the U.S. team for the Christmas Covenant, contributes as an adviser to the Interethnic Strategy Development Group (IESDG) that represents the racial and ethnic national caucuses of the UMC, and is an adviser to the Love Your Neighbor Coalition (LYNC). He is appointed as executive minister of connected engagement with the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference.

Speaking as a Christmas Covenant representative, Rev. Christie explained the background of this year's jurisdictional resolution in an email interview with United Methodist Insight. 

"The fact that all five Jurisdictions passed resolutions in support of the Christmas Covenant is itself promising," Rev. Christie wrote. "The 2019 General Conference prompted leaders in the U.S. to imagine beyond its own borders and to express a desire to trust the voices coming from the other one half the UMC. Jurisdictional delegates 'relocated' themselves and are now starting to reimagine a church that is not U.S. centered and then without a geographical center.

"Those two shifts in perspective, given the historical privilege the U.S. church has exercised, demonstrates curiosity and trust—curiosity in what the UMC can look and act like when the U.S. is no longer the presumed center responsible to maintain and expand colonial relationships, and then a trust that God is doing a new thing in geographical and theological contexts with which many of us are still unfamiliar."

Rev. Christie noted that a broader global perspective holds great importance for the future of the worldwide denomination.

"The Wesleyan Covenant Association and the Global Methodist Church would like to lead delegates to parrot convenient cultural caricatures of what theology and discipleship look like in Africa, Europe, and the Philippines,"he stated. "These resolutions rejected that strategy."

"Central Conference leaders and congregations are not monolithic in their theologies or lived experiences. There is a wide range of expressions of what it means to live out being a United Methodist and it frequently is informed by pluralistic cultures, political struggles and formative ethnic and tribal identities."

Rev. Christie said he sees the Christmas Covenant as "a gift to the U.S. church, precisely because it is proactive and not reactive. That is why we believe we have an opportunity with regionalization to be in dialogue with each other in a different way—in a way that is collaborative and not competitive, appreciative and not focused first on naming deficits or finding problems to be fixed in the other regions.

"That comes when we create greater equity across the regions and then engage in naming what we all hold and affirm in common–our Theological Task, Doctrine, and Social Principles–and then challenging one another to live into what we claim.

Christmas Covenant organizers have said they hope their proposal will encourage U.S. United Methodists to move beyond a colonial mindset in which the U.S. church was the "parent" body determining what "offspring" international regions should be and do, according to international United Methodists.

Rev. Christie amplified the Christmas Covenant organizers' vision.

"What would it look like to come together across regions to dialogue on the pressing issues in our own region through the lens of the Theological Task, Doctrine and Social Principles?" he asked in his email. "To really listen to each other with renewed empathy, not looking for agreement but affirming unity across our differences, and recognizing different responses to common struggles like human dignity and human rights, climate justice, or gun violence?

"What would it look like to do this at General Conference where we have discerned our emerging priorities by region and come together to make a worldwide impact? What does it look like to share ministry across borders—missionaries from the Central Conferences working in a U.S. Regional Conference, realignment of resources, advocacy for justice?"

"What would it look like to come together across regions to dialogue on the pressing issues in our own region through the lens of the Theological Task, Doctrine and Social Principles?"

– The Rev. Neal Christie, Christmas Covenant representative

Rev. Christie continued: "The Christmas Covenant asks each region to embrace contextual ministry because when we abandon our trust in colonial structures and the theologies to bring change, and then to embrace incarnational theologies we will recognize each other in new ways."

"We could start to name what this could look like for the U.S. when we start look at ourselves—shifting demographics, economic inequality, appropriated theologies that do not align with our Theological Task, Doctrine or Social Principles, and our challenges. This is already something that happens in the Central Conferences. They are offering us the same opportunity that they now exercise."

Rev. Christie also had some reassurance for longtime United Methodist leaders who fear the Christmas Covenant's effect on U.S. structures.

"The Christmas Covenant doesn't call for the abolition of jurisdictions; some mistakenly assert this," he said. "Those are decisions that will need to be made once we are a region. But what would it look like to be less parochial and more nimble with more porous geographical boundaries between and among jurisdictions? The Christmas Covenant calls for deep discernment and conversation about these matters as a U.S. region so that we can have more substantive conversations with (what are now called) the Central Conferences.

Ultimately, say its supporters, the Christmas Covenant aims to help the UMC maintain unity to fulfill its stated mission to "make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."

"Imagine what it looks like to see all the people and to live like Jesus, not only in our conference with the resources we claim but to be authentically collaborative across jurisdictions?" Rev. Christie wrote.

Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011. To reproduce this content elsewhere, email the Editor for permission.