The top legislative body of the United Methodist Church passed a series of measures Thursday to restructure the worldwide denomination to present each region greater equity in tailoring church life to its own customs and traditions.
The primary measure, voted on because the UMC General Conference met on the Charlotte Convention Center in North Carolina, was an amendment to the church’s structure to divide the denomination into 4 equal regions—Africa, Europe, the Philippines, and the United States.
According to the plan, each region would have the opportunity to customize a part of the denomination’s rulebook, the Book of Discipline, to suit local needs. While church regions in Africa, the Philippines, and Europe have already enjoyed some leeway in customizing church life, the United States has not.
The vote on the constitutional amendment passed 586–164, or by 78 percent, which implies it surpassed the two-thirds majority needed for constitutional amendments. It must now go before each smaller church region, called an annual conference, for ratification by the tip of 2025.
If ratified by two-thirds of delegates to the annual conferences, the restructuring would allow the 4 regions to set their very own qualifications for ordaining clergy and lay leaders; publish their very own hymnal and rituals, including rites for marriage; and establish its own judicial courts. A recent Book of Discipline would have one section that may very well be revised and tailored for every of the 4 regional conferences.
The two-week worldwide meeting is the primary meeting of the General Conference in five years, due mostly to delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It follows a painful schism that has split some 7,600 US-based churches from the denomination—a loss accounting for 25 percent of all US congregations.
Regionalization was the primary order of business and it got here unexpectedly early within the meeting. The General Conference typically doesn’t take up major proposals until its second week.
This shouldn’t be the primary time Methodists have tried to regionalize their operations. The last attempt, in 2008, passed within the General Conference but didn’t receive two-thirds ratification amongst individual conferences all over the world.
The Rev. Dee Stickley-Miner, executive director of missional engagement for the General Board of Global Ministries who has worked on the plans alongside non-US-based church leaders, said this time around, the measures are more clearly stated and have been shaped and vetted by Methodists in the varied regions.
Regionalization has been framed as an undertaking of decolonization. Born of an 18th-century movement begun in England by John and Charles Wesley, the Methodist movement through its various schisms and realignments has all the time been centered within the United States. This recent regionalization, whether it is approved, will decentralize the church.
“We’ve really come to know how worldwide the United Methodist Church is and the way that requires some changes in how we structure ourselves, in order that the United States is seen alongside the opposite regions so that Jesus can remain at the middle and never in a single region,” Stickley-Miner said.
But the regionalization plan can be an acknowledgment that cultural and theological differences are driving Methodists apart, especially regarding sexuality. Many church leaders consider the one way Methodists all over the world can live under one umbrella is in the event that they have leeway to differ on matters of same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBTQ people.
Several coalitions of Methodists within the US and abroad opposed the measure, including the Wesleyan Covenant Association and Good News Magazine.
On Thursday, delegates passed five of the eight measures within the regionalization package; the remaining three, which pertain to the US only, might be voted on later and are considered procedural.
