The second day of General Conference shifted from the celebratory opening worship to getting down to the business of the church, as delegates began working in their legislative committees and electing their chairs.
Leaders presented a sober picture of United Methodist finances, including the need to reduce bishops. At the same time, delegates heard hope for the denomination to pivot from church exits to revitalization.
Against a backdrop of past conflicts and division, both the Episcopal and Young People’s addresses offered hope for the denomination that will go forward from this gathering.
Bishop Holston: Become ‘who God needs us to be’
Bringing a word on staying who “God needs us to be” in spite of the ever-changing noise of this world, Bishop L. Jonathan Holston of the South Carolina Conference delivered the Council of Bishops’ Episcopal Address to kick off Day 2 of The United Methodist Church’s 2020 General Conference.
“When things are happening all around us, God uses the church to make a difference,” Holston proclaimed before the crowd of delegates, observers and volunteers gathered at the Charlotte Convention Center April 24. “The church was never built for our pleasure. The church is built for God’s purpose.”
He encouraged those gathered to love the Lord and their neighbor, to embrace disciple-making, peace-making and anti-racism, and to build up and not tear down.
Striving to be “who God needs us to be” should be the only priority, he said.
Holston was selected by the Council of Bishops to deliver the address on their behalf. The council comprises 59 bishops presiding over conferences and episcopal areas across the globe, as well as retired bishops.
Young people share fears, hopes for future church
Alejandra Salemi of the Florida Conference and Senesie T.A. Rogers of the Sierra Leone Conference delivered the Young People’s Address — one in person and one remotely.
To thunderous applause, Salemi said the General Conference is being held “in the midst of what feels like an emotional whirlpool that only something like divorce proceedings can stir up.”
“When time and money and energy go towards a divorce, it has to get subtracted from somewhere else, and I believe that our young people and local congregations are paying that price while resources go toward settling disagreements,” she said.
Salemi said what is happening in the church is a microcosm of what is happening in the rest of the world, and the most difficult thing to hear in an echo chamber is the quiet, knowing voice of the truth: God’s loving whisper that reminds us “to be still and know.”
“If you can’t have hope right now, that is OK, I will have enough hope for the both of us,” she said. “The kin’dom is out there waiting to be built.”
Rogers, who was unable to get a visa to travel to the U.S., delivered his recorded address, reminding delegates that splits were normal in the Methodist Church — all the way back to the first General Conference in 1792.
Because of that history, he said, it is pointless to worry about splits and their effects when we already know that splits and Methodism are intertwined.
“Do you know that there is something else that is part of our tradition? Indeed. Reconciliation and coming together is part of our tradition. We must be more about uniting than dividing at this point,” Rogers said.
Salemi and Rogers were selected by the Division on Ministries with Young People at Discipleship Ministries, which organizes the Young People’s Address as an opportunity for young United Methodists to witness about the church’s impact on their own lives and the lives of others.
Delegates urged to ‘restart church’ with less
At the first gathering of the policymaking body since a quarter of the denomination’s U.S. churches left, the delegates heard sobering news about the financial state of The United Methodist Church.
Before the delegates is a proposed denomination-wide budget that would be The United Methodist Church’s lowest in 40 years. It also represents the biggest budget drop in the denomination’s history.
“This is a General Conference that must send clear signals to the local church,” said incoming Council of Bishops President Tracy Malone, “that we are keenly aware that the loss of membership and the decline of sustainability has a direct influence on the amount of funds available to support ministry.”
The proposed 2025-2028 denominational budget coming before delegates is $353.1 million — a 42% reduction from the budget delegates approved at the 2016 General Conference, the assembly’s last regular session. Under that budget proposal, about $347 million would come from the U.S. and $6.1 million from the central conferences — church regions in Africa, Europe and the Philippines.
The Rev. Moses Kumar, the top executive of the General Council on Finance and Administration, emphasized that the budget includes cutting the number of bishops in the U.S. and adding only two bishops in Africa, rather than the initially planned five. The budget would reduce the number of bishops from a total of 66 funded in 2016 to a total of 54.
“I want to emphasize, GCFA has no authority to control the number of bishops elected,” he said. “It is our role to communicate what we can and cannot afford.”
A vision of the future
“The Pathway for our Next Expression,” a presentation by members of the Connectional Table and Council of Bishops, urged delegates to envision what The United Methodist Church will become. Acknowledging the need to refashion the church going forward and adapt to reductions in resources, the presenters encouraged a renewed commitment to discerning how to carry out the mission and ministry of the church.
Judi Kenaston, chief connectional ministries officer of the Connectional Table, said there has probably not been a General Conference that is more highly anticipated than this one.
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“The quadrennium that never wants to end has been long and filled with events that influence and shape everything that we will do this week,” she said. “The United Methodist Church that many of us have known for a lifetime suddenly looks far different than we have ever seen.”
Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton, outgoing president of the Council of Bishops, called for a pivot away from disaffiliation and toward mission and ministry.
“This is a General Conference that is being called to act strategically in the short-term so that we can act relevantly in the long-term,” he said.
Revised Social Principles, General Book of Discipline
Delegates heard proposals that would alter two of the denomination’s bedrock documents.
The Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters gave an update on work toward a General Book of Discipline. That work entails the standing committee — a permanent committee on General Conference — proposing what parts of the Book of Discipline’s Part VI apply to all regions and what they can adapt. Part VI, the Discipline’s largest section, deals with organization and administration.
The goal is to have a shorter, more globally relevant Book of Discipline. Whatever the new General Book of Discipline no longer includes will be subject to adaptation at the regional level.
John Hill, interim top executive of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, presented a report on the proposed revised Social Principles, which he called “a love letter to our church … to inspire us to be the beautiful beloved community of God.” During a short presentation, he asked delegates to “prayerfully consider” the changes, a goodly amount of which involve the ongoing conversation around the role of LGBTQ people in the church.
General Conference photos
In other news
- A yoga symbol featured on the General Conference platform was removed after an Asian American caucus stated that it was offensive. The New Federation of Asian American United Methodists penned an open letter to Bishop Thomas Bickerton, outgoing president of the Council of Bishops, expressing frustration at the inclusion of the symbol, which is also utilized by the Hindu Nationalist government to persecute religious minorities in India. The group asked for a “deep understanding of the rise of forces that are offensive to fellow Christians in other parts of the world.”
- A group of United Methodist clergy and laity in Congo organized themselves to track the progress of General Conference online. Jimmy Kasongo, the Kivu Conference youth president, said he has seen all the proceedings on his phone. “Today, even though I haven’t left, I am aware of everything that is happening, which is something new compared to the General Conferences of previous years,” he said. Mwaidi Jolie, secretary of United Methodist Women in the South Kivu Conference, thanked the church for the innovations in communication. “Today is my first time to see the bishops’ procession live,” she said, “and I was greatly edified by the sermon of Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton during the opening worship.”
Butler is a multimedia producer/editor for UM News. Contact him at newsdesk@umcom.org or 615-742-5470. Kivu Annual Conference communicator Philippe Kituka Lolonga, South Carolina United Methodist Advocate editor Jessica Brodie and staff from UM News contributed to this report.
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