Key points:
- Worldwide regionalization allows the worldwide church to remain United Methodist in a new connectional way, writes the Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli.
- After serving as a delegate to the recently held General Conference, she is hopeful for what these worldwide gatherings might be like in the future.
- “The beautiful diversity of voices, races, cultures, genders, gender identities, orientations, abilities and ages engaging in holy conferencing as a worldwide body was inspiring,” she writes.
Photo courtesy of the author.
Commentaries
My first-ever General Conference was in Portland in 2016.
I’ll never forget those first preparatory delegation meetings in which I found both the legislative process and the content of the legislation mystifying.
I wondered: In a time when so much is broken in our world, when so many hunger for bread and for justice, for safety, shelter and sustainable wages, for access to health care and clean water, and for an end to warfare between nations, tribes and gangs, was legislation about committee process or non-binding resolutions really what would occupy the energies of the highest decision-making body of the denomination for two weeks?
After serving as a delegate to the 2019 special called General Conference and the postponed 2020 General Conference held in Charlotte earlier this year, I am less mystified by the process, and I can even appreciate some of the legislative minutiae. But more than that, following our most recent General Conference, I am hopeful for what these worldwide gatherings might be like in the future.
I caught a glimpse of that in Charlotte as I served on the leadership team of a legislative committee with colleagues from the Philippines, Nigeria and the U.S. and as delegates from across the connection who held differing views spoke in committee and on the plenary floor. They spoke with occasionally a little “edge,” but with care. The beautiful diversity of voices, races, cultures, genders, gender identities, orientations, abilities and ages engaging in holy conferencing as a worldwide body was inspiring.
It was an unexpected joy to work with a common purpose for worldwide regionalization alongside new friends from Africa who are committed to remain United Methodist. I was blessed to learn about them and their ministries, and to learn from them as we served together. We understood that our contexts lead us to different stances on some key issues, that our countries are at different places culturally, theologically and legally related to ministry with and for LGBTQ+ siblings and allies.
Yet even in this deep tension, we found ways to make space for our different contextual needs and to stay United Methodist together. Because we know we are all part of the Body of Christ, called to be in mission together and to love one another.
Part of the experience in Charlotte — and in annual conferences across the U.S. these past weeks — is the strangely heart-warming feeling of the people in the room actually wanting to be there. I had the opportunity to experience not only my Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference, but also to spend time with the Michigan Annual Conference in May.
In these gatherings and in reports from friends and colleagues all over the United States, there is a fresh wind of Spirit blowing through the people called United Methodist and a new zeal for sharing the good news of God’s love, grace, justice and mercy for a world crying out in need. There is a reclamation of our Wesleyan heritage, the spaciousness of grace and the power of God to help us do the hard work of being the church that is needed for this time in human history.
But, as one colleague said to me recently, “As a large church, we’re very good at wishful thinking.” If we are to do more than engage in wishful thinking and experience less rancorous — and even joyful! — annual conferences, then some things have to really change.
Worldwide regionalization, supported by 78% of General Conference delegates, is not the answer to all the issues needing to be meaningfully addressed as we move into the future. But it provides the framework to accomplish several important things.
First, it allows the worldwide church — including the 75% of U.S. churches who did not leave the denomination — to remain United Methodist in a new connectional way.
My “home church” in small-town Oklahoma was a great example of the Wesley sentiment: “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike?” Growing up in a sea of “check the belief-boxes to get your ticket to heaven” churches, I was always proud of the United Methodist commitment to question, to debate, to think deeply and to stay in relationship with God and one another.
“Big Tent” or “Big Table” church is biblical; it is countercultural; it is profoundly Wesleyan. It is doing the harder thing — the Gospel thing. The going trend in the church and in the world is to jump into polarized bubbles, to discount or discard people who make us uncomfortable or angry. But regionalization keeps us meaningfully connected across differences and invites us to remain on the journey together as we all seek growth in holiness and love.
Not every person or congregation or even annual conference will want to do the hard work of being United Methodist if it means that we are in the Body of Christ with those who interpret Scripture differently or who don’t agree theologically. That has always been the case, and there will continue to be ways for those who need to depart to do so with grace. I believe that as one wise colleague said to me, “We may become smaller in size, but will grow bigger in deepened relationships.”
Regionalization also assures greater self-determination for all regions within the connection and decentralizes the United States in General Conference deliberations.
Conferences outside the U.S. currently have provisions allowing for regional decision-making, based on their context. Issues of property, ordering of ministries, financial issues and more can be determined within the region based on local laws and culture. The U.S. has nowhere to take those concerns except to the General Conference.
Many might agree that no one really wants to spend hours debating U.S. clergy pension plans — but delegates from the U.S. are the only ones who should have to do so. The strong vote for regionalization at the postponed 2020 General Conference reveals a desire for each region of the church to be able to order their shared life and ministry in ways that are contextually appropriate, make disciples and give life and hope to those in their local communities.
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As each regional conference takes up the necessary work of ordering the life of the church, there will — by God’s grace! — also be opportunities to address pressing regional issues. A United States Regional Conference, for example, could choose to finally place front and center the development of concrete strategies to acknowledge and address our denomination’s racist history and the toll it has taken on the Black church, or the pandemic of loneliness in our country, or the scourge of gun violence, or the crisis of faith and the growth of the “nones” (those who identify with no religious tradition).
United Methodists are known to be a “get it done” kind of people. When we decide to move together toward a goal, we know how to mobilize and move the needle on things that matter. Regionalization provides opportunities for all of us — not just those outside the U.S. — to do just that.
Finally, a benefit of worldwide regionalization is that General Conference gatherings can focus on the things that matter most of all, the core tenets of our faith and the human concerns we share across all the places and cultures in which we live and serve.
Imagine holy conferencing that isn’t mostly about legislative process with a little worship thrown in but is, rather, about learning together, forging new relationships, delighting in our different cultures, collaborating to be in mission together, reflecting together about the call of the Gospel for the days we are living, creatively focusing on and setting priorities for concerns that affect us all, such as climate change, violence, disease, and poverty.
Another of our United Methodist refrains is that we can do more together than on our own. Imagine a United Methodist General Conference working together, filled with the Holy Spirit, making decisions and creating strategies that truly participate in the transformation of the world!
Structures and conferences aren’t the salvation of the world. We leave that to the Holy One in Three. But how we live and serve together, how we honor one another across all our differences through holy conferencing and connection is part of how we — even we! — are incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvation.
I rejoice in the hope that the steps taken toward a new connectionalism through regionalization will be fully realized, bearing the fruits of growth in all the ways that matter.
Gaines-Cirelli is senior pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington.
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