Message from the Pastor - The General Conference

From April 23-May 3, the much-delayed 2020 General Conference of the United Methodist Church will be held in Charlottesville, VA. The last time this body gathered, it approved legislation that would prove an earthquake for our churches around the globe: codifying further exclusionary language regarding our siblings in the LGBTQIA+ community and deepening the hurt that had begun when the first version of this language was approved in 1972.

In the wake of this, the churches that comprise our denomination had two truths to address: the harm done locally by this language, and the fact that we were not going to be able to find a way to live across this difference as a denomination. Something would have to give.

And, in fact, much has given - in Minnesota, we passed open and affirming legislation of our own at our annual conference in 2019, and we have been living into that vision since. In our own congregation, we affirmed our choice to be inclusive in July of 2019 as well.

This General Conference has legislation before it to "regionalize" the church - as a global body, the logic goes, there are some things we simply can't do in concert. Some of this is related to very real legal differences from country to country (real estate laws, for example, vary widely and much of our current Book of Discipline is irrelevant outside the US in this regard), but much is related to how cultural differences play out in our common life together.

From a summary document from the Standing Committee (you can find the full document and other resources here:https:// www.resourceumc.org/en/partners/connectional-table/home/ resources/legislation/regionalization-legislation).

SUMMARY

The Worldwide Regionalization legislation proposes the formation of eight Regional Conferences. Our current Central Conferences— Africa, Central and Southern Europe, Congo, Germany, Northern Europe, Philippines, and West Africa—are to be renamed Regional Conferences. A new Regional Conference will be created for the United States.

Each Regional Conference will have authority to maximize the effectiveness of their mission and ministry by adapting portions of The Book of Discipline.

Regions would not have the authority to adapt Parts I through V of The Book of Discipline, which contains tenets of our faith – our Constitution, Doctrinal Standards and Our Theological Task, Christian ministry, and Social Principles.

In addition to this regional change, there is proposed legislation to remove the exclusive language currently held in our Social Principles, which would end the long-held tension between our language and theology of grace and the practice of holding that some groups of people are somehow not "enough" for the work of the church.

We have all (I hope) learned some humility about predicting how these votes will go; certainly, after 20-25% of our denomination's churches have disaffiliated, the math has changed. Whatever happens at the general conference level, Northfield UMC's commitment as contained in our welcome statement (included in this Herald) will remain, and your lay leadership and incoming clergy will do as they have always done - discern wisely and well how this church is called to respond to this and other events in the world and church.

Blessings, Rachel (pastor emerita)