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Phoenix Area Bishop Minerva Carcaño helps lead a discussion on church
restructuring during The United Methodist Church's Pre-General
Conference News Briefing at the Tampa Convention Center in Florida. UMNS
photos by Mike DuBose.
View in Photo Gallery
A UMNS Report
By Heather Hahn*
3:30 P.M. ET Jan. 25, 2012
TAMPA, Fla. (UMNS) — Months before the 2012 General Conference,
delegates to The United Methodist Church’s top lawmaking body got a
hint of the debate to come regarding restructuring the
denomination.
More than 300 delegates, communicators and agency staff gathered
Jan. 19-21 for the Pre-General Conference News Briefing at the Tampa
Convention Center, where discussions of the proposed changes dominated
conversation.
The main piece of legislation — the result of the multiyear Call to
Action process — would consolidate nine of the church’s 13 general
agencies into a new United Methodist Center for Connectional Mission
and Ministry under a 15-member board.
The board would be appointed by and accountable to a 45-member
advisory board called the General Council for Strategy and Oversight,
which would replace the Connectional Table that presently coordinates
the denomination’s mission, ministry and resources.
Essentially, the proposal would reduce agency boards now governed by
more than 500 people to a group of 60. The legislation would also
allow the board of the newly created center to redistribute up to $60
million toward funding theological education, recruiting young clergy
and fostering vital congregations — about 10 percent of the amount
presently budgeted for general church operations.
Delegates heard both an overview of restructuring legislation and
concerns that the plan would damage the denomination’s connectionalism,
give too much power to the bishops and eliminate the denomination’s
historic “separation of powers” between bishops and General Conference.
An overarching question for many at the briefing: Will the
reorganization achieve its goal of promoting more vital congregations
or have the opposite effect?
Jay Brim discusses the legislation on church restructuring. Brim is lay
leader of the denomination's Southwest Texas Annual (regional)
Conference and a member of the Connectional Table.
View in Photo Gallery
Harmonizing a ‘cacophony’
The Council of Bishops and Connectional Table initiated the Call to
Action to reorder the life of the church in the wake of the 2008 global
economic crisis and after decades of declining U.S. membership. The
Call to Action Interim Operations Team devised the recommended
changes, and the Connectional Table drafted the legislation.
“We do not presume that what we are presenting is perfect by any
means,” said Jay Brim, who chairs the Connectional Table’s legislative
committee. “It is a proposal to move us toward change, and these
changes, we hope, will be a significant step forward for the church.”
He said the proposal does not really address general church staff.
“It’s about the governance of the general church,” he said.
Brim, lay leader of the Southwest Texas Annual (regional)
Conference, said the denomination’s 13 current general boards are “in a
constant push to make sure that local churches and annual conferences
know who they are, what they have to offer and how to get it from them.”
“What we’re trying to create out of this cacophony is a simple
structure that everybody can identify without removing anything we
currently have,” he said. “Our hope is that we can find a better way to
offer our services at the general church level down to local
congregations and annual conferences.”
Even before the Connectional Table devised its restructuring
legislation, 10 of the agency boards were also developing their own
legislation to shrink their board membership. This followed an
operational assessment by consultants that found most agencies were too
big and met too infrequently to provide accountability.
Concerns about connectionalism
The Council of Bishops endorsed the restructuring at its November
meeting, but the vote was not unanimous. Phoenix Area Bishop Minerva G.
Carcaño shared her concerns about the plan during a presentation.
“Studies have shown that there is duplication and even competition
among our general agencies that does not benefit the mission and
ministry that God is calling us to be about,” Carcaño said.
“Yet, general agencies have served a vital function for resourcing
the church and enabling us to act connectionally, and we should not
lose these essential functions. There are things even our strongest
local churches cannot do alone, and some things they will not do.”
In some ways, she suggested, the proposed restructuring of the
agencies does not go far enough. She noted that the Connectional Table
legislation just puts agency work in new categories and leaves
unanswered what agency functions might be dropped or added to better
serve a global denomination.
In addition, she and others at the Pre-General Conference News
Briefing echoed concerns raised by the denomination’s ethnic caucuses
that the smaller governance boards would severely limit the
contributions of people of color. “In the U.S., a church that does not
reach out to people of color is a church that will die,” Carcaño said.
Concerns about bishops’ power
The Rev. Tim McClendon, a Connectional Table member and the Columbia
(S.C.) District superintendent, explained his worry that the
Connectional Table legislation would give too much power to the
denomination’s bishops.
The Rev. Timothy McClendon speaks about his concerns regarding church
restructuring. McClendon is superintendent of the denomination's
Columbia (S.C.) District.
View in Photo Gallery
At the coming General Conference, delegates also will take up a
proposed amendment to the denomination’s constitution to create a
bishop without the usual responsibility of overseeing a geographical
area. That bishop would be elected by the Council of Bishops and would
have — among other duties — the authority to serve as the
denomination’s chief ecumenical officer, help align the strategic
direction of the church and focus on growing vital congregations.
The Connectional Table endorsed this change, and under the proposed
restructuring legislation, the “set-aside” bishop would be chair of the
General Council for Strategy and Oversight and ex-officio member of
the board of the Center for Connectional Mission and Ministry.
Five of the voting members of the proposed Council for Strategy and
Oversight would be bishops. The Center for Connectional Mission and
Ministry would make its financial decisions in consultation with the
Council of Bishops.
“The power dynamic isn’t equal no matter how someone does the math,”
said McClendon, who is a candidate for the episcopacy. “There is no
way for the 15 persons, who are unpaid volunteers, no matter how great
they are in all that they do, … to make these (financial) decisions. It
also seems to me that the set-aside bishop is where the real power is
in the proposed structure.”
Concerns about separation of powers
The Rev. Thomas E. Frank, a historian of Methodism and professor at
Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., urged the delegates to
keep the denomination’s historic “principles” of governance in mind
when evaluating restructuring proposals.
He noted that the denomination and all but one of its predecessor
bodies have maintained a “separation of powers” between General
Conference and bishops.
Methodism also historically has separated the authority over programming from authority over money, he said.
“Separation of the two prevents consolidation of power and advances
accountability and participation,” Frank said. “The United Methodist
Church is hardly alone in this principle. It’s basic to the functioning
of any nonprofit corporation or nongovernmental organization.”
*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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