Regionalization as a Kairos Moment

UM & Global Third of a Series

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As I have been describing for the past two installments, while we have some problems in the church, including the problem of US centrism, God provides us solutions to our problems, and regionalization is one important such solution to the problem of US centrism.

There’s more good news, though. I believe we are currently in a period in which God has opened up the possibility of change in our church. We are in a Kairos moment.

Kairos is God’s appointed time. It is a time when the possibility for successful collective action exists. To borrow language from the political science term of policy window, it is when a problem, a solution, and the will to implement that solution line up. We have a problem – US centrism. We have a solution – regionalization. And I believe that we have the will to implement that solution in this moment.

Our current Kairos time is the latest in a long line of Kairos moments throughout UMC history, as the church has repeatedly encountered God’s invitation to live into new and more equitable ways of being the connectional church together across geographic borders:

  • From the 1790s through the 1810s, the system of a General Conference and regional annual conferences evolved. The first General Conference was held in 1792, and in 1812, the Methodist Episcopal Church began the present system of electing delegates from annual conferences to the General Conference.
  • In the 1830s & 1840s, the first American Methodist international missions offered the first chance to develop equitable relationships and structures across international boundaries. The church decided that annual conferences would be established everywhere Methodist mission went, not just in the United States.
  • In the 1870s, the first central conferences were created in India and elsewhere in Asia to allow for more coordination among annual conferences outside the United States. Eventually, central conferences led to leadership selection adaptation of church practices on a regional level outside the United States.
  • In the 1920s, there was discussion of how the church in the United States should relate to the church in Korea, Mexico, and Brazil, where the church was pursuing autonomy. In this period, central conferences were also extended around the world, almost but not quite, including to the United States.
  • The 1960s and 1970s brought COSMOS – the Commission on the Structure of Methodism Overseas – and a wave of churches in Latin America and Asia becoming autonomous.

I want to talk a little more about the COSMOS process as an example of how the church approached a Kairos moment in the past. COSMOS was designed to address issues of the relationship between the Methodist Church in the United States and the Methodist Church in other countries. In doing so, it was intended to balance the principles of freedom and fellowship.

COSMOS focused on 5 Core Principles that should determine the relationship between the church in different contexts:

  • Developing responsible, indigenous churches of integrity
  • Being shaped by the centrality of mission
  • Fostering interdependence in mission and fellowship
  • Being considered provisional and thus flexible
  • Providing for equality of relationship

Based on those principles, COSMOS developed four options for the structure of the church:

  1. Continuing the present structure, including central conferences
  2. Granting autonomy for churches outside the United States
  3. Creating an international church with regional conferences
  4. Creating a World Methodist Conference of Churches

So, COSMOS considered a variety of solutions to the perceived problems of its day. In the end, the UMC went with a combination of the first and second options. Some churches became fully autonomous. Others stayed in in the present central conference structure. We can perhaps see COSMOS as a missed opportunity to be more creative in finding ways to develop equitable connectional relationships across international differences, but it was a time when the church dedicated significant focus to such questions, and it was still a step forward in that direction.

Experimentation has continued since the time of COSMOS.

  • In the 2000s, the Worldwide Nature of the UMC saw regionalization legislation passed in 2008 but not ratified.
  • That brings us to our current moment of regionalization, where legislation has passed and is now in the ratification process.

So, regionalization has lots of historical precedence. Every few decades throughout the life of The United Methodist Church and its predecessors, there have been Kairos moments when the church has sought anew to develop equitable relationships of Christian fellowship across countries. With the current regionalization legislation, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to live into what God has been calling us to as a church for a long time.

I hope this series of posts leaves you with three things:

First, I hope you are assured of the strong theological basis behind the Worldwide Regionalization legislation.

Second, I hope you are grateful for the gift God has given the church in the form of this Kairos moment.

Third, I hope you are determined not just to support the Worldwide Regionalization legislation but to figure out how we can in all our ways as a denomination live into the type of connectionalism to which God is calling us. So may it be. Amen.

Dr. David W. Scott, a United Methodist layman, is the Senior Director of Theology and Strategic Planning for the General Boards of Global Ministries and Higher Education and Ministry. This is the last in a three-part series on UM & Global based on a presentation given to the Connectional Table on a theology of regionalization.