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UMC reforms face test at General Conf. Sam Hodges, Jan 27, 2012
UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE PHOTOS BY MIKE DUBOSE
Bishop Minerva Carcaño of the Phoneix Area.
By Sam Hodges Managing Editor
TAMPA, Fla.—The United Methodist Church’s General Conference is still nearly three months away, but issues likely to dominate—such as consolidating general agencies and ending guaranteed appointment for clergy—got a dress rehearsal hearing in a briefing for delegates and others held here Jan. 21-23.
The pushback was plentiful.
For example, Bishop Minerva Carcaño of the Phoneix Area voiced concern about what she saw as the “disregard” for general agencies in the reform proposals, and for how a combination of reorganization and budget cutting could leave them much weakened.
“We may lay unreasonable expectations on our agencies, crippling their efforts, and in the process we may lose some critical functions in ministry that serve the connection and its work,” Bishop Carcaño said.
But she did not dispute the need for a strong shaking-up of the denomination, and there seemed to be broad consensus at the briefing that change is required, given the denomination’s four-decades-long slide in U.S. membership and other statistics illustrating decline. “We’re in a crisis situation,” Bishop John Hopkins, of the East Ohio Conference, told those gathered for one session.
The Pre-General Conference Briefing, a United Methodist Communications event, allows delegates (many of them chairs of delegations) and Annual Conference communicators a chance to hear about key proposals in some depth.
The briefing was held at the Tampa Convention Center. That’s where General Conference—the quadrennial gathering that settles questions of church law, policy and budget—will occur April 24-May 4.
Then nearly 1,000 delegates will gather. Here the crowd numbered about 300.
They got to tour the convention center, learned about rules changes and absorbed tips about how to stay healthy and grounded during the long days and nights of considering more than 1,100 petitions.
“In every General Conference, we take somebody to the hospital,” the Rev. Fitzgerald “Gere” Reist II, secretary of General Conference, said during a briefing session. “We don’t take care of ourselves.”
Tough questions
The briefing was dominated by intense discussion and pointed questions about proposals aimed at reforming the church. Clergy members of the Study of Ministry Commission presented on guaranteed appointment, with the Rev. Amy Gearhart of Columbia, Mo., arguing for change.
“We need to be nimble and creative, and as long as we are locked into the commands and demands of the guaranteed appointment, that makes it impossible for us to put the mission before the structure, instead of the structure before the mission,” she said.
The Rev. Tom Choi, district superintendent for Hawaii and another Study of Ministry Commission member, agreed.
“At this time, we need to focus, not on security of appointment, but on securing the future of the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ,” he said.
But the Rev. We Hyun Chang, pastor of Belmont UMC in Belmont, Mass., and a New England Conference delegate, pressed the panel during a question-and-answer period.
“Guaranteed appointment gave me the freedom to speak truth,” he said, speaking of cross-cultural church appointments he has had. “It gave me the room to be prophetic. . . . I think that’s missional.”
One briefing session focused on the episcopacy, namely the proposal for creating a “set aside” Council of Bishops president who would be able to focus on executive leadership and not have to oversee an Annual Conference.
Bishop Larry Goodpaster, current Council of Bishops president, said at the session that he found it “nearly impossible” to meet the demands from around the UMC while still tending to the needs of the Western North Carolina Conference.
But some delegates took the microphone to suggest that creating the set-aside bishop position, combined with proposals to end guaranteed appointment and consolidate general church agencies, amounted to a power shift in favor of the episcopacy.
“There’s a pretty significant strengthening of the role of the Council of Bishops,” said Randall Miller, a lay delegate from the California Nevada Conference.
Bishop Goodpaster said he and his colleagues are focused on their stated goal of boosting the number of vital congregations in the UMC, and that proposed reforms would actually reduce the bishops’ participation on general church boards and allow them to focus more on the local churches in their conferences.
He noted that at the upcoming General Conference, as at all such gatherings, bishops would have no vote.
“I don’t think those balances of power change at all,” he said. “I don’t think any of us [bishops] saw it that way. We understand who we are. We are United Methodists, and our system is that the General Conference speaks for the United Methodist Church.”
Tall order
A lengthy briefing session focused on church restructuring. The proposal that came out of the Call to Action reform effort (initiated after the 2008 General Conference) would move nine agencies into a Center for Connectional Mission and Ministry governed by a 15-person board. That new organization would be overseen by a 45-member board.
Such a change would eliminate various agency boards and the travel costs incurred by hundreds of board members. But critics say that power in the UMC would be concentrated and diverse viewpoints diminished.
The session on restructuring generated lots of specific questions, including about whether the General Council on Finance and Administration would lose its independence, and whether program and finance tasks would be merged in violation of traditional UMC polity.
Don House, a veteran General Conference lay delegate from Texas, used a question-and-answer period to voice his concerns about GCFA losing autonomy. During a break, he said he thought the proposal could easily be amended to keep GCFA outside the new structure.
Mr. House is among those who favor major change for the denomination. But he said the current reform proposals may be too many and too complex for General Conference to consider, amend and pass in the few days allotted for legislative committee work.
“It worries me,” he said.
Robert Williams, general secretary of the UMC’s General Commission on Archives & History, provided historical background on UMC polity during one session. But in the hall afterward, he expressed concern about the fate of his agency if it doesn’t have its own board, but instead has to answer to a 15-member board responsible for a wide array of church business.
“We’ll get lost,” he said.
‘More excellent way’
Other sessions dealt with the proposed $603 million quadrennial budget (the first to see an actual reduction in spending); possible changes to the church’s pension plan; and plans for a service of repentance at General Conference, addressing the UMC’s historic involvement in crimes against Native Americans and other indigenous peoples.
The briefing included a session on “holy conferencing” about difficult issues, and the discussion focused on the church’s evergreen controversy over homosexuality. The church’s official position remains that the practice of homosexuality is outside of Christian teaching, and the U.S. church remains deeply divided over ordination of gay clergy and whether UMC clergy should officiate at same-sex unions. The UMC’s Book of Discipline currently prohibits both.
Bishop Sally Dyck of the Minnesota Conference noted that recent General Conferences have seen so much controversy over sexuality issues that people arrive for the next one feeling “dread-full”—and that fear and suspicion of opposing factions are prevalent.
“I’ve come to believe that there are more conspiracy theories in the United Methodist Church about each other and different groups than there ever was about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and 9/11 put together and multiplied,” she said in presiding at the holy conferencing session.
But she also said her experience showed that United Methodists can demonstrate a “more excellent way” in working together despite strongly held, opposing beliefs. Others on the panel agreed, but none held out hope of compromise any time soon.
“It seems like some of the issues that we face, and not just the issues around sexuality . . . are, at least in the foreseeable future, unresolvable,” said the Rev. Tom Lambrecht, vice president of Good News, an unofficial conservative caucus within the UMC.
There was more optimism that structural changes of some sort would be adopted, if not as far reaching as those originating in the Call to Action process and backed by the Council of Bishops and Connectional Table.
Between now and General Conference, lots of preparation needs to be done, and will be, to find common ground, said Jay Brim, a lay delegate from Austin, Texas, who helped craft the proposals that would so dramatically reorganize the general church.
“I will definitely be looking for a set of changes that will be acceptable within the goals we’ve set, to make the church more nimble,” he said.
UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE PHOTOS BY MIKE DUBOSE
But some delegates took the microphone to suggest that creating the set-aside bishop position, combined with proposals to end guaranteed appointment and consolidate general church agencies, amounted to a power shift in favor of the episcopacy. 
‘More excellent way’ 
