One Church, Many Regions: What Changes for Our Bishops?

Worldwide Regionalization

by

Special to United Methodist Insight | Nov. 17, 2025

The United Methodist Church is in a season of deep change. After the 2024 General Conference approved the Regionalization Plan, many laypeople naturally ask: What will this mean for our bishops, and for the way the church is led? This essay offers an overview of the future of the episcopacy – that is, the ministry of bishops – after regionalization, and why it matters for ordinary local churches.

What do bishops do?

In the New Testament, the word often translated as “bishop” (episkopos) means overseer. The early church used it for spiritual leaders who guarded the faith, taught sound doctrine, and cared for the flock. United Methodist bishops are consecrated to preach and teach the gospel, ordain clergy, assign pastors, preside at annual conferences, and serve as a visible sign of the church’s unity in Christ.

Most laypeople experience the bishop at key moments: confirmation, baptisms, ordination services, or annual conference sessions. Behind the scenes, bishops work with district superintendents and other leaders to support local churches, respond to crises, and keep the whole connection focused on mission. The office exists so that no local church or pastor is left to carry the load alone.

What is regionalization?

The Regionalization Plan takes an existing pattern and makes it explicit. Instead of having the United States as the default model and the rest of the church as “exceptions,” the plan creates eight regional conferences—Africa, Congo, West Africa, Central and Southern Europe, Germany, Northern Europe and Eurasia, the Philippines, and the United States—each with clearly defined authority over its own life and mission.

Each region will be able to make certain decisions for itself, within limits set by the church’s Constitution. Regions can adapt parts of the Book of Discipline to their own legal, cultural, and missional context. They may also address questions such as qualifications for ordination and standards for marriage in ways that reflect their circumstances, while remaining within the boundaries of core doctrine and shared commitments.

In short, regionalization recognizes that United Methodists live in very different settings around the world – under different governments, economic conditions, and social debates – and gives each region more room to respond faithfully in its own context.

What changes for bishops?

Some things do not change. Bishops will still be consecrated in the historic manner, promising to guard the faith, seek unity, and lead the church in mission. They will still preside over annual conferences, appoint clergy, and provide spiritual and administrative oversight.

What does change is the framework in which bishops exercise these ministries. With regionalization, more decisions about bishops are made within the region itself. Regions will have a stronger voice in deciding how many bishops they need, where episcopal areas should be drawn, and how bishops are supported financially. Importantly, regions will need to balance their desire for close episcopal presence with the financial realities of supporting that ministry, so that resources are used wisely for mission.

The old pattern, where the General Conference and U.S. membership counts largely set the number of bishops, gives way to regional discernment based on mission and resources.

At the same time, the differences that already exist in episcopal tenure become clearer. In the United States, bishops are elected for life, while many bishops elsewhere serve for a fixed number of years. Regionalization acknowledges this diversity rather than trying to force a single pattern on every part of the church. The office is one; the ways it is structured can vary.

Regional Colleges of Bishops and the global connection

Another important change is the greater weight given to regional Colleges of Bishops. A College of Bishops is simply the group of all bishops serving within a particular region or jurisdiction (in the U.S.). Under regionalization, these regional or jurisdictional colleges become the primary gatherings for supervising the life of that region: offering guidance to annual conferences, coordinating mission strategies, and speaking to issues that affect their people.

The global Council of Bishops will continue to meet, pray, and consult, but its role will likely be more of a forum for coordination and mutual encouragement than a top-down governing body. You might think of:

  • Regional Colleges as hubs of leadership close to the ground, and
  • The Council of Bishops as the family reunion, where the whole house of bishops keeps itself connected in love and prayer.

In this sense, the future episcopacy is both more regional and still truly global.

Will the church become more divided?

This is one of the most common fears. If different regions can adopt different rules, won’t the church simply fall apart? Regionalization does create real diversity. Some regions may ordain LGBTQIA clergy and permit same-sex marriage; others may not. Some may adopt different approaches to clergy tenure, retirement, or church organization.

However, regionalization is surrounded by important guardrails. The core of the faith—our doctrine, the Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith, our understanding of grace and salvation—remains the same for all regions. The Constitution and the Judicial Council, the UMC’s top court, still provide a common framework, ensuring that no region can rewrite the essentials of United Methodist identity.

In that sense, the episcopacy becomes a living sign of “unity without uniformity.” Bishops will be shaped by their own cultures and contexts, yet their consecration and vows tie them to one global body. They are called to love and respect one another across regions, listen carefully to different experiences, and keep reminding the church that its first loyalty is to Jesus Christ, not to any culture or ideology.

Opportunities for renewal

If handled with faith and humility, regionalization can open new doors for the mission of local churches.

  • Decisions closer to the context. A rapidly growing annual conference may need more bishops and new episcopal areas to support evangelism and church planting. Another region facing decline may need to consolidate areas and try new forms of shared leadership. Regionalization allows bishops and conferences to respond more quickly and creatively.
  • Greater trust. When lay and clergy members in a region know that their own bodies have shaped the rules under which they live, they are more likely to see those rules as fair and meaningful. Bishops who emerge from and are accountable to their region may be better positioned to speak credibly into local realities.
  • Deeper sharing. As bishops from different regions continue to meet together, they can help broker partnerships in which gifts and resources are shared across the globe—financial support, mission personnel, theological insight, and practical experience.

What does this mean for laypeople?

For most lay United Methodists, life in the local church will not suddenly feel different. Sunday worship, small groups, outreach, and pastoral care remain the heart of Christian life. Yet over time, several changes may become noticeable: a stronger regional accent in conference priorities, new mission initiatives tailored to local needs, or different ways of handling hot-button issues.

In the next few years, you may notice changes in how your annual conference is structured, how many bishops serve your region, or how we talk about mission priorities. You might also see the church explaining why another region has made different choices about certain practices, without those differences breaking our unity.”

Laypeople have a crucial role in this new landscape:

  • You can pray for your bishop and for all bishops, that they may be both courageous and humble.
  • You can participate faithfully in the life of your annual conference, electing delegates who understand both the gifts and the risks of regionalization.
  • You can seek to learn from other regions, remembering that every part of the body has something to teach the rest.

A new way of loving and serving

The future of the episcopacy after regionalization is not mainly about bishops gaining or losing power. It is about reshaping an old office to serve a new moment in the life of a global church. Bishops will remain chief pastors and signs of unity, but their ministry will be rooted more deeply in their regions and more clearly connected to a worldwide fellowship that honors difference without breaking communion.

Whether this future becomes a blessing depends not only on bishops and theologians, but on the prayers, patience, and faithfulness of laypeople. If together we embrace regionalization as a way to love our neighbors in their real contexts while holding fast to the core of the gospel of Jesus, the ministry of bishops can help The United Methodist Church live more fully into its calling: one church, many peoples, united in Christ for the sake of the world.

The Rev. Dr. Lui Tran is assistant chancellor for church law and assistant district director in the California-Pacific Annual Conference. He served on the Judicial Council from 2016 to 2025 and is currently the senior pastor of Garden Grove UMC. He is also the founder of UMChurchLaw.com, a website designed to provide “church leaders with clear, practical, and theologically grounded resources on the law and polity of The United Methodist Church.”