Plan would pave way for U.S. regional conference
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Bishop Patrick Streiff, of the
Central and Southern Europe Area, asks a question about the Global
Nature of the Church report, presented during the Council of Bishops
meeting in Springmaid Beach, S.C. UMNS photos by Linda Green.
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By Linda Green*
May 10, 2007 | SPRINGMAID BEACH, S.C. (UMNS)
A task force examining the global nature of The United Methodist
Church has proposed four changes to the denomination’s constitution in
an effort to make regional and jurisdictional structures similar
worldwide.
The constitutional changes, to be presented to the 2008 General
Conference, would pave the way to make the church in the United States a
regional body, similar to the church’s units in Africa, Europe and
Asia. Currently, the structure gives the U.S. church greater influence
than its overseas counterparts.
The proposals were presented in a May 3 report to the Council of
Bishops by Bishops Ann Sherer and Scott Jones. They are part of a
seven-member task force exploring the nature of the church, including
relationships among United Methodist annual conferences and bishops,
ecumenical relationships, and ties to autonomous and affiliated
churches.
The interim report from the Global Nature of the Church Committee to
General Conference includes legislation calling for continued study of
the church's worldwide mission and ministry and the role the
denomination could play in modeling a new way of being the church in the
world. The United Methodist Church has congregations in 38 countries.
"We believe God needs a church that is more fully ready for worldwide
mission and ministry," Sherer said. The proposed changes would equip
the church "to do the mission in ministry to which God calls us," she
said.
Why now?
"Recent developments in world Christianity call for a new emphasis on
a concept of mission that addresses a world community and would not be
impeded by national, cultural and economic barriers," according to the
task force report.
Sherer said exploring the church's worldwide nature is the result of new
church initiatives, mission cooperation and church growth, especially
in Africa; new initiatives of the Council of Bishops and the
Connectional Table; the possibility of churches in the Philippines
considering autonomy and seeking greater relationship with other
Methodist bodies in Asia; and the 2004 General Conference's authorized
story of the relationship between the Methodist churches in Latin
American and the Caribbean and The United Methodist Church.
"With those four winds blowing," Sherer said, the task force is
proposing legislation for broader conversation in the next quadrennium.
"If we are a worldwide church by theology, how completely are we living
this theology?" she asked. "The United Methodist Church is on a journey,
and we are continuing, changing and becoming."
The legislation
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Bishops Hee-Soo Jung, Kainda Katembo and Onema Fama participate in the April 29-May 4 gathering.
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The global dimensions of The United Methodist Church stem from the
strong missionary outreach of its predecessor denominations. Its
ministries of personal and social development have manifested themselves
"in a church implanted on five continents," said the Rev. Robert
Harman, a retired pastor in Northern Illinois who is quoted in the
foreword of the worldwide ministry document.
In his 2006 paper for the Connectional Table, Harman said, "the
challenge has always been, and remains today, learning how to
accommodate or enable the witness of this global community of faith
within the connectional spirit and structure of Methodism."
Legislation being forwarded to the 2008 General Conference requests
the task force and the Connectional Table to jointly continue their
study of the church's worldwide nature and report to the 2012
legislative assembly on the church's characteristics and how the United
States could become a regional conference while retaining its current
jurisdictional composition.
"While we celebrate the worldwide nature of our ministry as United
Methodists, we have to confess that too often we failed to operate as
the body of Christ as described in 1 Corinthians 12 …," Sherer said.
"Changes in the constitution make us nimble.
It positions us to be more flexible and frees us to move …. It is a
signal that we are thinking in new and open ways."
-Bishop Judith CraigThe proposed
legislation would clear a path for broader conversation in the next four
years and in 2012 would "help shape the church in a way that will
enable it to faithfully and justly embody our life together," she said.
"Changes in the constitution make us nimble," said Bishop Judith
Craig, retired, of Powell, Ohio. "It positions us to be more flexible
and frees us to move if we decide to move. It is a signal that we are
thinking in new and open ways," she said.
Craig was one of 127 bishops, active and retired, hearing the
proposal during the April 29-May 4 council meeting outside Myrtle Beach,
S.C.
Bishop Patrick Streiff of the Central and Southern Europe Area said
the proposal to make the United States a regional conference "gives
possibility to separate U.S. business from the church worldwide" at
General Conference. "Part of the church outside the U.S. is 30 percent,
and it is just not possible to continue General Conference as we have."
The report, which urges Christians to be "a counter culture," says
that the U.S. influence in churchwide governance, as evident in the Book of Resolutions,
is damaging to the church both inside and outside the United States.
"It disempowers central conferences from being fully actualized within
the body and allows the church in the United States to escape
responsibility from dealing with its internal issues."
The document says that wholeness reflects the value of all people.
"To be whole is to value all. Our structure must reflect this value and
prompt us to ever-greater degrees of responsibility for reflecting God's
reign in the church and the world."
The proposal
The proposal to General Conference is to study what the church will
look like in the future and to enable it to live more fully into its
worldwide nature and reality, according to Jones. "It is the first step
in a long journey."
The proposal does not change the number, purpose and function of
jurisdictional conferences; the way bishops are elected or assigned; the
purpose or mission of any churchwide agency; the size or power of
General Conference; the way the Social Principles are decided upon or
amended; or the apportionment formulas and allocations, Jones said.
The four changes "strike out of places in the constitution language
that says that central conferences are only for areas of the church
outside the United States," he said.
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Bishop Ann Sherer talks with Bishop Susan Morrison after presenting a report on the global nature of the church.
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The structure envisioned is that every annual conference will belong to a
central conference and that "any central conference, if it so chooses,
can divide itself into jurisdictions," opening the possibility of the
United States becoming a central conference in 2012. If the church in
the United States takes that action, Jones said, its jurisdictional
structure presumably would remain untouched.
Jones said the constitutional amendments will provide for a future
General Conference to make that kind of change so that every United
Methodist annual conference would belong to a central conference and
participate in General Conference.
In the proposed legislation, reference to central conferences in the
constitution would be changed to regional conferences. Several bishops
said the word "central" is not grammatically correct, carries a negative
connation historically and is meaningless.
The Council of Bishops also approved a resolution called "A
Commitment to Unity in Mission and Ministry," emphasizing commitment to
four areas in the future course of the denomination's work and life:
leadership development, congregational development, ministry with the
poor and global health. The resolution was approved by several boards
and commissions of the general church agencies this spring, signaling
their intention to collaborate closely on the denomination's priorities.
*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Linda Green, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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Resources
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