Jonathan LeMaster-Smith

I do a regular Monday post about United Methodist Polity on my FB Page, but will be posting it here as well (and on the YouTube Channel) from now on.

¶33 is quite possibly my favorite section of the Constitution of The United Methodist Church. The paragraph solidifies our polity of connectionalism as one that is rooted in gathering, not isolation.

It lists out the rights reserved for annual conferences. Those listed include:

• election of delegates to General Conference, Jurisidictional, and Central Conference,
• voting on amendments to the Constitution,
• matters of character and conference relationship of clergy (reserved for certain levels of clergy and designated lay folk)
• and such other rights as have not been delegated to the General Conference under the Constitution.

This last one is more fleshed out in other places, and includes:

• opening and closing of churches
• designated contextual missions for the region
• providing resources and information to the local churches
• and, due to the nature of this being reserved for the Bishop, the appointment process for providing local churches with pastors (and other things.

One of the key realities of the recent disaffiliation process is that churches do not understand connectionalism (and this is likely because clergy do not understand connectionalism). Yes, the LGBTQIA+ issues were a catalyst, but in many ways, it was a movement of local churches wanting control and power.

Fear and anxiety during the past decade due to political animosity, pandemic, mistrust of authority, and the decline of religious affiliation in America led to desire for isolation and power. Fear of church closures, appointment of pastors they did not like, and assumptions about the future of the theology and practice of the church led to the disaffiliation.

But, as I regularly state, this is not just the fault of the local church. It is the fault of the clergy, the laity, and the conferences as a whole for not teaching the value of the connection. The annual conference is a space for ministry collaboration, creation, and innovation. Particularly, my annual conference has staff and volunteers working to enhance communications, financial sustainability, discipleship, children and youth ministry strategy, church vitality, justice, rural issues, urban issues, and so much more.

My annual conference is also working to create more avenues for educating and empowering laity for discipleship and leadership. It is offering grants for missional engagement, church vitality, spiritual renewal, leadership development, and other creative and spirit minded activities. Moreover, work is being done to bring people together to share ideas, celebrate successes, assess failures, and fellowship together.

The thing is, with all of this, it requires that people in all parties make an effort to do the work. This is increasingly necessary of the annual conference representatives. This is no longer a meet in the middle, it is a go to where the people are, communicate as directly and as often as possible, and rebuild these essentially frayed (if not severed) relationships.

But, and I say this as someone who is a local church, the local churches and their pastors have to also do a better job of being open, willing, and interested in the act of connection. The clergy who hide in their offices, who only do their job and go home, and don’t teach about the conference or Methodist realities on a regular basis, this is why we have a problem. This impacts the laity who also often feel disconnected from the church. I firmly believe if we actually taught our local congregations why it mattered, they would be involved and supportive in ways we can’t even imagine.

I think this paragraph offers a hope for a future, but it requires that we do things that the conference make the effort to go to the people, and that the people. Methodist understandings of connectionalism means we are not alone, not only do we have God, but we have a global collaboration of people from diverse backgrounds, theologies, and practices, that are working to transform the world.