wfn.org | Another proposal emerging for United Methodist reorganization

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Aug. 3, 1999	News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.    10-71B{402}

CHERRY HILL, N.J. (UMNS) - A model for focusing and communicating the
mission and ministry of the United Methodist Church in the next century is
emerging from the General Council on Ministries (GCOM).

A group of 25 GCOM members, known as the Conciliar Forum, spent much of its
July 29-30 meeting discussing a proposal that will be taken to the entire
council in November. Developing the plan is a 14-member GCOM Implementation
Task Force headed by Minnesota Bishop John Hopkins.

Hopkins was not at the Conciliar Forum meeting but other members laid out a
proposal for a "Ministry Resource Conference" that would assume many of the
functions now performed by the GCOM. With a membership of between 100 and
125, it would meet twice each year. An Expanded Ministry Resource Conference
would meeting at least once every four years as a global body to "celebrate
the identity and mission of the church and to facilitate the hearing,
articulation, and testing of God's vision for the church." 

The smaller Ministry Resource Conference would:
*	articulate ministry vision,
*	align ministry resources,
*	communicate ministry direction,
*	tell ministry stories, and
*	serve the ministry needs of God's baptized people, local
congregations and annual conferences.

The Ministry Resource Conference might include at least five function teams:
administration and fiscal, nurture, outreach, witness, and leadership. The
possibility of adding another on communications, or including it with the
Ministry Resource Conference, is being explored.

Membership on the Ministry Resource Conference would include bishops,
individuals from each of the function teams, members of local congregations
and annual conferences across the global church, caucus representatives,
people from affiliated and autonomous churches of the Methodist family, and
others to ensure that "all parts of the church connect and communicate with
the whole church."

The GCOM's regular meeting in November could be its last. A Connectional
Process Team (CPT) is recommending that the agency be replaced by a Covenant
Council beginning in 2001. 

The CPT was created by the 1996 General Conference to develop a
"transforming direction" for the church and to propose organizational
structures for the future. The team will meet Sept. 15-20 to finalize its
proposals for the General Conference in Cleveland May 2-12. Before the 2004
General Conference, the proposed Covenant Council would align the current
churchwide boards and agencies into a new structure according to functions.
The CPT proposal also addresses the global expression of the church.

Asked why GCOM is making its own recommendations, staff executive C. David
Lundquist pointed to the Book of Discipline, which gives the agency
responsibility to study the connectional structures of the church and
"recommend to the General Conference such legislative changes as may be
appropriate to effect desirable modifications ... "

Some GCOM members are also members of the CPT.  Progress reports have been
received regularly by the agency.

Houston Area Bishop J. Woodrow Hearn, president of GCOM's governing body,
also pointed to the agency's disciplinary mandate. "During this quadrennium,
the GCOM has experienced the richness of doing its work in a consensus
fashion in which we have attempted to bring to the table the different parts
of the church that related to programming. We believe that this consensus
style, and especially having opportunity for people related to the program
agencies to consult together, has been very beneficial to our work." GCOM's
goal, Hearn added, is to find ways this style of working together can be
perpetuated into the future.

Lundquist underscored the importance of "conferencing together by all
parties and groups that are needed to explore an emerging vision for the
church and to seek to discern where God is leading."

"The style by which GCOM has done that has been to include voices all across
the church," he said. "Out of this we are beginning to see the emergence of
a model that will offer the church the opportunity to be truly collaborative
and to involve as many voices as possible."

As the GCOM's Implementation Task Force continues to perfect the plan for
the agency's meeting in November, Lundquist said the plan would be shared
broadly with groups, including CPT.  Some Conciliar Forum members expressed
hope that CPT might incorporate into its final proposal some of the main
points from the GCOM plan. Others said there would be value in having more
than one option for General Conference delegates to consider.

The GCOM plan is superior to the CPT plan, several members argued, because
the latter relies on churchwide agency leaders to transform the church
structures during the 2001-2004 quadrennium. The Ministry Resource
Conference, they reasoned, would be a more representative body. Both
proposals envision a transitional period of at least four years.

The CPT's scope encompasses the duties previously handled by the
Connectional Issues Study Task Force of the GCOM and work of the Council of
Bishops related to the "global nature of the church." Chairwoman of the CPT
is Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher, Springfield, Ill. 

The Rev. Kathi Austin Mahle of Minneapolis, a member of the GCOM
Implementation Task Force, said the emerging proposal "sets the table and
invites dialogue." The GCOM plan "holds the value of talking together
wherever it needs to happen so we don't have people doing their own thing,"
she added.

In other business, the Conciliar Forum discussed the ambiguity of annual
conference plans for flexible organizational structures in light of Judicial
Council rulings saying such plans are unconstitutional. A consultation of
annual conference and churchwide agency representatives is being convened by
GCOM Aug. 4 to discuss possible legislation related to the issue.

Forum members also discussed funding procedures leading up to the 2000
General Conference and expressed concern that the church would plan from a
perspective of scarcity than abundance.  In addition, they heard a report
from the GCOM Office of Research identifying research projects being planned
and implemented by various church organizations and related institutions.

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