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A UMNS Report
by Heather Hahn*
6:00 P.M. ET Sept. 14, 2011
A UMNS web-only illustration created by Kathleen Barry using wordle.net.
Leaders of five groups that represent the denomination’s ethnic
constituencies caution that proposals to restructure The United
Methodist Church are “too drastic.”
The leaders are responding to proposed legislation that the General Conference, the denomination’s top lawmaking body, will take up next year.
Among other proposed changes, the legislation would
consolidate nine of the denomination’s 13 general agencies into a new
United Methodist Center for Connectional Mission and Ministry. The
center would have a 15-member board of directors, which would be
accountable to a 45-member advisory board called the General Council for
Strategy and Oversight. The council replaces the Connectional Table,
which was created by the 2004 General Conference and coordinates the
denomination’s mission, ministries and resources.
The proposed consolidation and concentration of power in the
15-member board will reduce the participation of racial and ethnic
minorities, the Inter-Ethnic Strategy Development Group said in a statement released late Sept. 9.
The statement said the group feels “the proposed restructure of our church and the legislation ... is too drastic a change.
“It minimizes and will exclude the participation of racial ethnic
persons, and works against the principle of inclusiveness that we see
as one of the important values our church has to offer to the
multicultural, multiracial society in which we live and do ministry.”
Bishop Gregory V. Palmer addresses a joint meeting
of the Connectional Table and the General Council
on Finance and Administration in this 2009 photo.
A UMNS file photo by Ronny Perry.
Illinois Area Bishop Gregory V. Palmer, who helped devise the proposed changes, disagrees.
"The assumption that an operational change cannot embody our
commitments to inclusiveness and diversity is fundamentally flawed,” he
said.
The inter-ethnic group includes leaders of the denomination’s five official ethnic caucuses: Black Methodists for Church Renewal, Metodistas Asociados Representando la Causa de los Hispano-Americanos, National Federation of Asian American United Methodists, Native American International Caucus and Pacific Islander National Caucus of United Methodists.
“Altogether, the groups have about 4,000 members in the United
States. The denomination has more than 12 million members worldwide, of
which 7.8 million reside in the United States. About 686,000 United
Methodist lay members in the United States are ethnic minorities.”
At this point, most of the groups still are tallying how many
members will be delegates to the 2012 General Conference. They wanted
to release their statement now to encourage all church members to
“scrutinize the legislation,” said Pamela Crosby, executive director of
Black Methodists for Church Renewal.
Raúl Alegría, president of the denomination’s Hispanic caucus,
stressed that the ethnic caucus leaders understand that The United
Methodist Church needs to make changes.
Raúl B. Alegría. A UMNS
photo by Bilha Alegría.
“But we want to make sure the church not only in its structure but
also in its annual conferences will continue to embrace the diversity
that’s already in our communities,” he said. “We also want to empower
and enable churches to make sure they are places where people from
different ethnic-language groups can feel welcome.”
General Conference ultimately will determine whether the proposed changes are accepted.
Concerns about process
One of the inter-ethnic group’s main concerns is that the
legislation was drafted with “little or no consultation with the
different ethnic constituencies of our church.”
“It seems like it was rushed through to just make sure they made the
General Conference deadline,” Crosby said, “and in the process things
get left out, and discussions that need to be had are omitted.”
The recommended restructuring is the result of the church’s multiyear Call to Action process, which aims to address decades of decline in the denomination’s U.S. membership and increase congregational vitality.
The suggested changes originated with the Interim Operations Team, a group of eight laity and clergy working with denominational leadership to implement the Call to Action recommendations. Palmer is the convener of the Interim Operations Team, which has been meeting since March.
Donald Hayashi. A UMNS 2007
file photo by Kathy Gilbert.
The Connectional Table refined and endorsed the recommendations
at its July meeting. A month later by email, the members of the
Connectional Table voted 26 to eight in favor of the drafted
legislation, with nine members abstaining.
Each of the ethnic caucuses has a representative on the
Connectional Table, including two of the signers of the inter-ethnic
statement, Alegría and Anne Marshall of the denomination’s Native
American caucus. Both voted against the legislation.
At the Connectional Table meeting, Alegría said he affirmed the
recommendations the Interim Operations Team presented. Yet, he voted no
to the drafted legislation, he said, because its timeline for
consolidating the agencies is significantly quicker than the two years
he heard in July.
Under the legislation,
the newly created United Methodist Center for Connectional Mission and
Ministry will have responsibility effective July 31, 2012, for the work
now assigned to nine general agencies.
“It essentially eliminates all the boards and agencies as structures
following the conclusion of General Conference,” Alegría said. “And
that’s not what I understood would be taking place. …There’s no time
for transition from where we are now to the proposed restructure.”
Mary Brooke Casad, the Connectional Table’s executive secretary, said
the July 2012 deadline only applies to putting the governance
structures in place.
“It does not impact the agency work and staff,” she said.
General agencies and annual conferences
Marshall, chair of the Native American International Caucus, has her
own misgivings about the legislation. Like other ethnic caucus leaders,
she worries that the planned restructuring will weaken the work now
done by general agencies on behalf of ethnic minorities.
“We feel the general agencies have been silenced (in this process),” said Marshall, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) tribe.
Pamela Crosby. A UMNS file photo.
Staff and board members of the general agencies “have been far more
sensitive and concerned with … the needs of racial/ethnic communities
than annual conferences,” said the inter-ethnic group’s statement.
“Their advocacy and resources have made possible the full participation
of racial/ethnic persons at the General Church level and helped annual
conferences become more inclusive and responsive to the spiritual
needs of racial/ethnic persons.”
As the United States has become more ethnically diverse, the caucus
leaders said general agencies have taken the lead in helping to plant
churches and provide resources for evangelism among different ethnic
groups.
Alegría specifically pointed to the five “national plans” housed at
the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries and Board of
Discipleship. The plans help plant churches to reach different racial
and language groups in the United States. For example, the National
Plan for Hispanic/Latino Ministry as of March had helped plant 59 new
predominantly Hispanic congregations since 2008.
More than 91 percent of the denomination’s U.S. lay membership was non-Hispanic white in 2009, according to the most recent data from the denomination’s General Council of Finance and Administration. In contrast, the 2010 Census
reports that the U.S. population overall is 72.4 percent white, 16.3
percent Hispanic, 12 percent African-American and 4.8 Asian.
The United Methodist Church in the United States will continue to
shrink unless it starts reaching more potential disciples in the
country’s other ethnic groups, said Donald L. Hayashi, president of the
National Federation of Asian American United Methodists.
“We find that the legislation as it is now is unacceptable,” Hayashi
said. “It will be counterproductive to the growth of our church. It
will set back ministry many years.”
The ethnic caucus leaders acknowledge that the agencies have some
duplication of duties. However, in their statement, they urge General
Conference delegates first to consider legislation coming from general
agencies aimed at addressing denominational concerns.
East Ohio Area Bishop John L. Hopkins, chair of the Connectional
Table, said he appreciates the perspective of the inter-ethnic group and
welcomes more “holy conversations” across the United Methodist
connection in the coming months.
“The Connectional Table’s initiatives addressing the role and
governance of the general agencies are only a small part of a
comprehensive set of changes,” he said by email. “We look forward to
ongoing dialogue about the critical challenges of the Church that led
to the Call to Action effort, the core values undergirding ministry
effectiveness and United Methodist life and the best ways to organize
time, talent and resources for the urgent need to create and sustain an
increase in the number of vital congregations.”
*Hahn is a multimedia news reporter for United Methodist News Service.
News media contact: Heather Hahn, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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