Are you, your church or your annual conference prepared to pay $200 per person to attend the 2019 Special General Conference? You'll have to find the money somewhere if a recent decision by the General Commission on the General Conference stands.
If that news offends you and your United Methodist leadership, well, get in line.
Once again, Facebook groups devoted to United Methodist matters exploded with outrage this week as the General Conference Commission announced it would require registration fees of $200 to $300 per person (depending on time of payment) to attend the 2019 Special General Conference slated for Feb. 23-26 in St. Louis, Mo. The primary rationale for the decision is to make up a $700,000 shortfall in the budget.
The decision seems reasonable if you're only going by the math. The average visitor attendance of a General Conference totals around 3,500 people. Divided into the need for $700,000 that works out to $200 a person. Simple math.
What's gotten overlooked in the arithmetic is the effect the registration fee is having on the second goal of the commission – toning down the anger and mistrust that have marked General Conferences for decades. Bishop Thomas Bickerton of New York Conference acknowledged that the registration fee was also seen as a means of crowd control. Judging by the initial reactions, however, the Commission's action merely fuels negative emotions as advocates move demonstrations outside The Dome in St. Louis, where the protests will be much more vulnerable to outside agitation and confrontations between competing groups.
Overall, the Commission aims to make it possible for the delegates to do their work, which will center on considering the Council of Bishops' proposal to allow "local option" for annual conferences, congregations and pastors regarding the compatibility of diverse human sexuality with United Methodist tenets. The disruptive demonstrations of past General Conferences might justify the decision somewhat. However, "facilitating decision-makers work" has been used to close deliberations of the Commission on A Way Forward and the Council of Bishops on this topic that threatens to split the denomination. The Commission's decision to use the same rationale appears likely only to increase anger and mistrust across the denomination, not reduce it.
Furthermore, the registration fee affects not only visitors and advocates, but also annual conferences. The Commission has decided that delegations with more than six reserve delegates must pay registration fees for the additional representatives. This places a heavy burden on notoriously fragile annual conference budgets dependent on local congregations' apportionments. In order to fully fund all of its delegates, a conference now will have to pony up extra registration fees. A congregation that's socially and politically active within the United Methodist connection may decide to shave or even withhold its full apportionment amount in protest of the General Conference registration fee. Thus, there will be fewer funds for annual conferences, and less representation in the crucial process to decide the future of the global denomination.
Plus, if the estimated $700,000 shortfall is a fixed cost of doing business, it's possible that the registration fee will reduce attendance below the 3,500-person target, resulting in inadequate revenue to pay the bill.
So while the choice to charge registration fees may have stemmed from rational mathematical analysis – after all, parachurch organizations have paid fees for services at General Conference for decades – the unintended consequences of the decision are looking less and less beneficial. If anyone has a better idea for how to fund this critical assembly, it's likely that the General Commission on the General Conference and the General Council on Finance and Administration would be delighted to hear it.
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.