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Parking Lot Committee?
Shutterstock Photo by Elena_Alex_Ferns
Special to United Methodist Insight
When the Council of Bishops revealed on Sept. 5 that they no longer want to call a special session of the General Conference in 2026, they announced plans to convene a different kind of meeting. They want to assemble a body of persons whom they select, for discussions in a format they design, at a location they choose, across a number of days and nights they decide.
In their announcement, the Bishops labeled this event a “Leadership Gathering.”
They could have called it a “parking lot committee.”
Nearly every local church has one of those. It does not officially have responsibility for the church parking lot. In fact, it is not an official body at all. It is just a group of people, often self-appointed, who typically gather in the church parking lot after a charge conference, a church council, or a board of trustees has adjourned. They discuss what the majority at the meeting voted to do. Then they decide what the local church actually will do.
I had to deal with one of those in the early months of my term as a district superintendent.
A pastor, who had moved into the parsonage at his new appointment, called me about the condition of the place that his family had to occupy. The water heater was leaking and unreliable. The roof had several places where it could not repel the rain. He brought these matters to the attention of the trustees, who said they would address the problems.
When nothing happened after a few weeks, the pastor called some local contractors and secured estimates for the repairs. He presented the estimates to the board of trustees at their next meeting, and they voted to do something.
When nothing happened, he confronted the chair of the trustees, who said some board members talked in the parking lot after that meeting and decided the estimates were too high. They would gather volunteers to do the best they could in making repairs. It was unofficial, of course.
Apparently rescinding their decision in November 2023 to call the General Conference to hold a special session in 2026, the Bishops decided instead that what the denomination needs is an unofficial group, like a parking lot committee. It can talk. It can find ways not to do something. It can divert attention from actions officially taken about the denomination’s doctrines or Discipline.
It could also cast doubt on the capability of institutions established by our Constitution, on the viability of church laws, and on the utility of official entities in United Methodism. It could imply that the way forward is to find ways around what we say we believe and are called to do.
Rather than the constitutional methods by which charge conferences elect lay members of annual conferences and annual conferences elect delegates to General, Central, and Jurisdictional Conferences, the Bishops will select whom to invite to their “Leadership Gathering.” They already decided to select themselves. They also decided to select the chief executives of denominational agencies. They will let each Bishop select three persons from the Episcopal Area to which a Bishop is assigned. And they will select about fifty others whom they loosely describe as “leaders.”
Consider the practical problems in this plan.
First, it will be expensive. Getting more than 300 persons to a “Leadership Gathering” that lasts five days will require transportation, lodging, meals, and logistical details for everything from renting a large facility to getting audio and video equipment in place with technical staff to operate it. Visitors and others who are not invited will have to be accommodated.
Second, it is not clear how the costs will be covered. The General Conference in Charlotte approved a budget that makes massive cuts in official church programs. It also includes funds for a special session in 2026. Can that line item be diverted by the Bishops (who do not vote at General Conference) or by the General Council on Finance and Administration (which is subordinate to the General Conference) for an unofficial activity?
Third, an immense amount of professional staff time will now be repurposed from official church activities to an unofficial one. Wherever the gathering occurs, attendees will need help to secure travel documents. Materials will have to be written, assembled, translated, and published. Attention will be distracted from fulfilling the official mission of the church in order to arrange an unofficial gathering of a parking lot committee.
If the Bishops feel the need to do something as the “itinerant general superintendents” of the Church, they could find another way to spend the time they will consume on phone calls and in meetings, trying to decide how to conduct the “Leadership Gathering” they propose. They can use the time to listen to the lay and clergy members of the charge conferences in their Episcopal Areas. They can itinerant the local churches in the annual conferences to which they are assigned. They can learn what the persons in their pulpits and their pews say is the wisest way forward to fulfill the mission of The United Methodist Church. At least that would be official.
William Lawrence
The Rev. Dr. William B. Lawrence (Photo by Todd W. Lawrence)
The Rev. Dr. William B. Lawrence, a retired United Methodist elder, is Professor Emeritus, American Church History at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University and a Research Fellow at the Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition at United Methodist-related Duke University Divinity School.