A More Just Structure for the Global UMC

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The Northeastern Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church has submitted legislation to General Conference to transform how the UMC functions as a global church. They are offering a webinar in late October 2015 to give more information and answer questions.

A more just structure

The structure of the global United Methodist Church was set over 40 years ago. The 1960s-70s were not exactly known for Americans being equitable to foreign countries, and our UMC reflects that in many ways. Two examples off the top of my head:

  1. For decades, the Ivory Coast was denied full representation in the global church, and it took a Judicial Council ruling to give them full representation at General Conference.
  2. The Central Conferences can edit the Book of Discipline for their context, but the United States cannot.

In 2008, the General Conference attempted to change the structure of the church to make it more equitable. Those amendments failed thanks to the conservative caucus groups defeating them out of fears of advancement of homosexuality.

We’ve been waiting for the global church (General Conference and the General Boards) to give us some plans for years. They deferred making recommendations at the last two General Conferences. Rather than wait for another deferred study, the NEJ decided to study it themselves, alongside Central Conference voices, and make a proposal.

Proposal and Webinar

Tuesday, October 27, 2015 from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM (EDT), the Northeastern Jurisdiction is holding a Webinar to outline their proposal for the 2016 General Conference to consider.

From the Webinar:

Welcome! We are excited to be able to share information about the Global Connection Plan for the United Methodist Church! Our two-year process with a diverse group of United Methodists has lead us to an exciting proposal that we believe can be a source of wholeness and healing for the church.

Our desire is to share our plan and respond to your questions about it. In this 60-minute webinar we will present the problems we are seeking to fix, the solution we’ve developed, and the answers to the most frequently asked questions. View the Global Connection Plan: http://www.nejumc.org/global-structure-task-force.html.  We’ll also have time for your responses and questions.

I hope you are able to make it and get your questions answered as well as hear more about what the proposal entails.

Click here to sign-up!

See you then!

I am looking forward to the conversation. I haven’t written yet about the NEJ proposal, so it should provide a lot of clarity for me to understand the benefits (long-term and short-term).

Thoughts?

The Rev. Jeremy Smith serves as minister of discipleship for First United Methodist Church of Portland, Ore. He blogs at Hacking Christianity.