Why The UMC Should Not Create Regional Conferences: Repost

*This is reposted for reasons of font issues*

My friend Tom Parkinson, fellow Duke Div student and candidate for ordination in the UMC, has written a thoughtful, insightful essay about the upcoming amendments to be voted on at Annual Conference this summer.   He has asked me to post it on my blog as a means to encourage conversation surrounding this very important matter.   If there is someone that would like to have an essay posted from a different perspective please email it to me and I will be happy to post it here.   In the meantime, please feel free to comment below.   Thanks, Tom!

Why The UMC Should Not Create Regional Conferences

Thomas J. Parkinson

One of the great blessings experienced by the United Methodist Church in recent years has been the growth and expansion of the church internationally.  While the recent trend in the UMC in the U.S. been one of decline in professing membership, the Central Conferences (UMC bodies outside of the U.S.) have experienced exponential growth.  According to a report published by the General Commission on Finance and Administration, between 1995 and 2005 the West Africa Central Conference experienced a 415.8% increase in professing membership.  In the Africa and Philippines Central Conferences, growth rates exceed 200%.  And the Congo Central Conference has grown at a rate of 129.2%.

Such astounding rates of growth in UM membership outside the U.S. are changing the landscape of United Methodism.  It is also causing a great deal of conversation concerning the worldwide nature of the UMC.  One major concern is how the General Conference, the only UM body that can speak for the whole church, can be tailored to the concerns of a church that is increasingly more global in scope.  Not a few UMs have observed how slanted the General Conference is to distinctively American concerns.  The location, legislation, and organization of General Conference all reflect the dominance of American values and ideals, a fact which is rightly objected to by many in the Central Conferences.

Last year, at the 2008 General Conference, a series of 23 amendments were passed that seek to change the worldwide nature of the UMC in an attempt to solve the problems of an American dominated General Conference structure.  The amendments, proposed by the Taskforce on the Worldwide nature of the Church, will be presented at all Annual Conference sessions for approval this year.  You can find the text of the amendments here:  Constitutional Amendments

The goal of the amendments is to create regional conferences in the UMC that can deal with regional issues, leaving the General conference less regionally based issues to discuss.  The result of such amendments would be the creation of an American regional conference by the year 2012.

On the surface, such amendments seem to address the problems generated by the global expansion of United Methodism.  It limits regional concerns to a separate venue, which should free General Conference to deal with issues that are global in nature.  Yet, I believe that the effects of such a structural change will be the source of much division in the UMC’s future.  Accordingly, I offer the following reasons why Annual Conferences should reject the 23 Amendments changing the worldwide nature of the church.

1.  The amendments deny the church’s theological identity – While the amendments do have some pragmatic benefits, they undermine the church’s theological identity.  Regional conferences will serve only to further divide a church that is already too far from unity in the first place.  Regional conference structures lend too much credence to the national and cultural boundaries that the gospel of Jesus Christ subvert and ignore.  Instead of seeking to cross these boundaries with the love and fellowship of the Holy Spirit, regional conferences reinforce them.  But God calls the church not to divide by nationality, but to bring all nations together under our one and common Lord Jesus Christ.

2.  The amendments are the easy way out – To hold a variety of cultural and national peoples together in unity is a difficult task, one that requires patience, listening, and mutual respect.  A move to regional conferences says that unity is too hard a chore for the UMC to commit to.  Instead of changing General Conference so that it won’t be dominated by American concerns, it frees each regional church to go and talk amongst themselves.  The result will be an American regional conference that reflects the current American dominated General Conference.  Suddenly, General Conference will become a gesture of unity, but the real work of the church will occur at the regional level.  Such a situation is easier to maintain, but it fails to deal with the problem it proposes.  It just gives the American church more space to be obsessed with ourselves.

It is a blessing and a gift for the UMC to have such global expansion.  It is a denial of that gift to respond to it by separating into regions.

3.  The amendments lack patience – With the exponential growth of the Central Conferences, it will not be long before the voice of the UMC outside the U.S. is stronger than the voice inside the U.S.  When that occurs, General Conference will be forced to change because it will not be dominated by American members.  It is already easy for some in the church to imagine a General Conference held outside the U.S.  Given a couple of years, the concerns of the global church will work themselves out.

4.  The Anglican Example – Regional conference structures are very reflective of the structural model of the Anglican Communion.  It is evident that the Anglican structure is flawed, in as much as regional divisions in the Anglican Communion have come to a head in recent years.  A regional conference structure in the UMC could lead to the same kind of division 20 or 30 years from now.

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