UMC
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United Methodist Monday: Election of Delegates to General, Jurisdictional, and Central Conferences by Annual Conferences
¶¶ 34-36 Outline the requirements for election of delegates to General and Jurisdictional Conference. Essentially, annual conferences elect their representative delegates to General, Jurisdictional and Central Conference (Jurisdictional is a region inside the US, Central is a region outside the US). They elect based on a ration determined by the General Church. General Conference delegates Continue reading
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YouTube: What does the General Conference Do? (Part 1)
This week’s video is part 1 of 2! I’m exploring what the General Conference does and what that might mean for local churches. Continue reading
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“The Annual Conference is the basic body of the church…”
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 Continue reading
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YouTube Channel Announcement!
Alright y’all, I’ve been working on this for a while, and now it’s time to unveil it. I’m producing a series of YouTube Videos about Methodist Things! First off, of course, is a series of videos on The UMC General Conference. These videos will come out on Thursdays and provide knowledge about What General Conference Continue reading
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Let them Lobby
This topic is about a month old, but I wanted to mull it over a bit before responding. According to UMNews.org the Wesley Covenant Association and Good News Movement, among others, will be lobbying at General Conference in April. They will mostly be working to convince folks to join the Global Methodist Church (which formed Continue reading
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Thoughts on the Correspondence Related to Wesley Memorial UMC
I have received several messages related to the status of Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in High Point, North Carolina and the various emails, letters, and more that have gone out advising folks to vote for or against the disaffiliation of this congregation. I want to provide some insight based on polity to the situation Continue reading
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Judicial Council Item 1023-01
As we turn to the upcoming Judicial Council Docket for October, the first one asks questions of parliamentary authority. This request comes from the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference related to a parliamentary matter..You can read the full document (linked here, scroll down to the list), but essentially, a panel panel presentation related to a potential strategic Continue reading
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Judicial Council Fall 2023 Docket
As the UMC keeps on moving, the next thing we have coming up is the Judicial Council Meeting. The Judicial Council is our Supreme Court. It decides on matters of church law of decisions of bishops, actions of conferences (charge, annual, jurisdictional, central, and general), and other issues of the church. The group of nine Continue reading
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Disaffiliation Rumors, Myths, and Opportunities – #11: Three General Conferences?
A version of this post first appeared on my Facebook Page on March 22nd, 2023. A UM News Article about some Judicial Council rulings. They came down in one decision. The first ruling is that we can have elections if there are vacancies in the delegations for whatever reason. The second, and more interesting thing Continue reading
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Disaffiliation Rumors, Myths, and Opportunities – #8: The Lewis Center Report
There is a report going around from the Lewis Center ( a church and ministry research and leadership development center at Wesley Theological Seminary). It gives us a quantitative look at some of the aspects of the disaffiliating churches so far. Here is a concise summary from the report (full report linked here): The areas Continue reading
Jonathan LeMaster-Smith 