The New Shape of The United Methodist Church

Analysis

by

Special to United Methodist Insight | Nov. 24, 2025

If you have felt overwhelmed by talk of “regionalization,” constitutional amendments, and new rules about ordination and marriage, you are in very good company. Many faithful United Methodists are asking themselves the same questions: Who is really in charge now? What exactly changed in 2025? Who gets to decide about LGBTQIA clergy and same-sex weddings?

And, perhaps most importantly, what difference does any of this make in my local church?

This article is meant to be a layperson's guide to the new shape of our denomination after the 2020/2024 General Conference and the constitutional amendments that took effect on November 5, 2025.

Our Structure Is Theological, Not Just Bureaucratic

Methodists have never believed in “solo Christianity.” John Wesley insisted that there is no such thing as a purely private faith. We are meant to follow Jesus together, in connection with one another. That is why United Methodists talk about being a connectional church. Our structure is not just a tangle of committees and rules. It is a way of living out the conviction that we are one body in Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-27) and that God uses the whole community to discern and do God’s will.

In practice, this means that individuals belong to local congregations; congregations are linked in districts and annual conferences; and annual conferences belong to regional conferences that together form a global church. We did not invent this overnight. Our structure grew over more than two centuries, beginning with the “Christmas Conference” in 1784, moving through the creation of the first delegated General Conference in 1808, and continuing through the major mergers of 1939 and 1968 that eventually produced today’s United Methodist Church. Along the way we adopted a Constitution and a Book of Discipline to give lasting shape to our common life.

None of this is meant to glorify bureaucracy. The point is simple and deeply theological: we believe God calls us to follow Christ not as scattered individuals or independent congregations, but as a worldwide body that shares mission, accountability, and grace within a connectional covenant.

What Changed on November 5, 2025?

On November 5, 2025, four major constitutional amendments took effect. They had been adopted by the 2020/2024 General Conference and then ratified by more than 90 percent of the voting members of annual conferences around the world.

The first big change is that we became, in a formal sense, a truly regional global church. Instead of a structure largely designed around the United States with “central conferences” elsewhere, the church is now organized into regional conferences in every part of the world. There are eight regions: Africa, Congo, West Africa, Central & Southern Europe, Germany, Northern Europe & Eurasia, the Philippines, and the United States. Each of these regions has authority, within constitutional limits, to adapt portions of the Book of Discipline to its own context.

The second change strengthened Paragraph 4 of the Constitution, which deals with membership. It now explicitly says that people cannot be excluded from worship, the sacraments, or membership because of their gender or ability, along with race, color, national origin, status, or economic condition. In plain language, the Constitution now clearly promises that everyone belongs and that no one can be turned away because of who they are or what they live with in their body.

A third change deepened our constitutional commitment to racial justice. Paragraph 5 now names racism, colonialism, white privilege, and white supremacy as sins the church must recognize and resist. This is more than a vague statement about being “against racism.” It is a constitutional promise that our church will confront specific forces that have shaped our history and still shape our world.

Finally, Paragraph 35 was amended to clarify which clergy are eligible to vote for clergy delegates to General Conference, regional conferences, and jurisdictional conferences. This may sound technical, but it matters for fairness. The goal is to ensure that the clergy who elect other clergy to represent them are clearly defined and treated consistently across the denomination.

Who Decides What Now?

To make sense of the new structure, it helps to imagine four main circles of decision-making: General Conference, regional and jurisdictional conferences, annual conferences, and local churches.

The General Conference remains the worldwide legislative body. It still has the only church-wide law-making power and ordinarily meets every four years. Delegates—both clergy and laity—are elected by the annual conferences. General Conference sets official doctrine, approves and revises the Book of Discipline, establishes church-wide agencies, and adopts global Social Principles. At the same time, General Conference is not all-powerful. Our Constitution has “Restrictive Rules” that it cannot change, including basic doctrines, the office of bishop, and clergy rights to fair process and appeal. These rules are the guardrails that keep us from rewriting our core identity every four years.

What regionalization changed is the way General Conference’s decisions interact with the authority of regional bodies. General Conference now provides a common core—sometimes called a “General Book of Discipline”—while regions have defined power to adapt some of the rest in light of their legal and cultural realities and to have their own regional Discipline.

Regional Conferences and Decisions about LGBTQIA Ordination and Marriage

Under the amended Constitution, regional conferences have become the key bodies between General Conference and the annual conferences in their part of the world. They are defined by geography, not theology or ethnicity, and they are co-equal with one another. Africa is not “under” the United States, and the United States is not “over” the Philippines or Europe. Each region is a full partner in the life of the church.

Regional conferences support evangelism, education, mission, and social ministries in their areas. They elect and assign bishops in regions that do not have U.S.-style jurisdictions. They set boundaries for annual conferences. Most significantly for many conversations after 2024, they exercise adaptation powers in areas that touch directly on membership, ordination, and marriage.

At the 2024 General Conference, denomination-wide bans on ordaining openly LGBTQIA persons and on clergy officiating at same-sex weddings were removed from the Book of Discipline. The new constitutional and regional framework now allows each regional conference, within constitutional and civil-law limits, to decide whether LGBTQIA persons may be ordained in that region and whether United Methodist clergy there may officiate same-sex weddings and services of blessing.

In practice, that means the church has chosen a path of structured diversity. Some regions may adopt fully inclusive policies for ordination and marriage. Other regions, because of theological convictions or civil laws, may retain restrictions. Still others may craft gradual or hybrid approaches as they discern a way forward. No region may contradict the Constitution itself, and every region must obey the civil laws of the nations within its territory. Within those boundaries, however, each region has space to make decisions it believes are faithful to the gospel and appropriate to its context.

In the United States, these conversations and decisions will take place within the new U.S. Regional Conference, in ongoing relationship with the existing jurisdictional conferences that continue to elect and assign bishops.

Annual Conferences: Still the “Basic Body” of the Church

For all these changes, the annual conference remains what the Discipline calls “the basic body in the Church.” If you want to know where real authority lives in The United Methodist Church, the answer is still: in the annual conference.

It is in the annual conference that clergy are admitted into full membership, commissioned, and ordained. Questions of clergy character and conference relations are decided there. Mission priorities and budgets are set for that particular area of the church. Delegates are elected there to General Conference, regional conferences, and—where applicable—jurisdictional conferences.

Over the years, the church’s “supreme court,” the Judicial Council, has repeatedly defended the central role of the annual conference and insisted that neither bishops nor agencies can simply bypass it. In the new regionalized structure, annual conferences continue to live in two directions at once: they look “upward” toward their regional conference and the General Conference, and they look “downward” toward districts and local congregations. They are the essential bridge between the local and the global.

Bishops and the Judicial Council: Leadership and Accountability

Bishops still play a crucial leadership role. They are elected either by regional conferences or by jurisdictional conferences and assigned to lead particular episcopal areas. They make clergy appointments, preside over conferences, give spiritual and administrative leadership, and guard the doctrine and discipline of the church. United Methodist bishops are called “general superintendents,” a phrase that matters because it emphasizes that they are not monarchs. Their authority is real, but it is shared with the conferences, limited by the Constitution and the Discipline, and subject to review.

The Judicial Council, by contrast, does not lead the church in mission but guards its legality. Often described as the church’s “supreme court,” it interprets the Constitution and the Book of Discipline, decides whether acts of General Conference, bishops, and conferences are lawful, and hears certain appeals in judicial and administrative cases. Over time, it has upheld the trust clause, insisted on fair process for clergy, applied the principle that no body in the church may act beyond its lawful powers, and protected equal participation of laity and clergy in conferences.

In the coming years, the Judicial Council will play a key role in interpreting how regional powers, strengthened inclusion language, and the church’s racial justice commitments fit together with existing structures of conferences, bishops, and agencies.

Agencies and the Local Church

General agencies such as Global Ministries, Higher Education and Ministry, Church and Society, and others do not govern the church; they serve it. They support mission and evangelism, provide resources and training, coordinate global ministries, and help manage finances, pensions, and administrative work. As regionalization takes deeper root, these agencies will increasingly work with regional bodies to offer support that fits local realities while maintaining a shared identity as one United Methodist Church.

At the same time, local congregations remain “the primary base of mission and ministry.” It is in local churches that the gospel is preached, the sacraments are celebrated, children and adults are formed in faith, and ministries of mercy and justice meet real human needs. Yet local congregations are not isolated outposts. Their property is held in trust for The United Methodist Church, and they are accountable to their charge conference, district, annual conference, and ultimately to the Constitution and Discipline of the denomination.

In a regionalized church that constitutionally affirms inclusive membership and names racial justice as a core commitment, local congregations are invited to live those commitments daily: in who is welcomed, who is listened to, who is trusted with leadership, and how the church shows Christ’s love in its neighborhood.

Why This Matters for Ordinary United Methodists

All of this may sound complex, and in some ways it is. But beneath the complexity lie some very concrete promises and responsibilities.

Your membership is now explicitly protected in the Constitution. The church may not exclude you from worship, the sacraments, or membership because of your race, gender, ability, nationality, or economic condition.

Your region will be the place where decisions about LGBTQIA ordination and same-sex weddings are made, within constitutional and civil-law limits, which means you are not simply subject to distant decisions; you can participate in discernment through your annual conference and its elected delegates.

Your vote and voice still matter. Lay and clergy delegates are chosen through processes that begin in the annual conference, and involvement in local and conference life is how ordinary United Methodists shape the future of the church.

Our global diversity is now reflected in law: regions can adapt church law so that it makes sense in their legal and cultural context, while we still share common doctrine and a common Constitution. At its best, this new structure is about grace in governance—about law serving the gospel, structures serving discipleship, and connectional unity serving Christ’s mission.

The ultimate goal has not changed. Our Constitution and Discipline exist for one purpose: to help the church stay focused on “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world” (Paragraph 120). Everything else—regional conferences, bishops, Judicial Council decisions, and even constitutional amendments—is there to support that mission, not to replace it.

If the changes of 2025 feel complicated, it is because the body of Christ is large and diverse. But beneath it all is a simple hope: that by organizing ourselves more honestly as a global, multicultural, and connectional body—while naming inclusion and racial justice in our Constitution—we might become a clearer, more faithful sign of Christ’s love for all people and cultures in every region 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.”