From the Worldwide Faith News archives www.wfn.org


GCOM endorses single-board idea, self-termination


From NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>
Date Thu, 25 Apr 2002 14:47:41 -0500

April 25, 2002  News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.  10-71BP{183}

NOTE: Photographs and a sidebar, UMNS story #184, are available with this
report. For further coverage of the General Council on Ministries meeting,
see stories #185-187.

By Tim Tanton*

OKLAHOMA CITY (UMNS) - The United Methodist Church's program coordinating
council has affirmed the idea of creating a single, common table that would
be responsible for overseeing most of the denomination's general agencies.

Members of the General Council on Ministries also have decided to recommend
the dissolution of their own agency by the end of 2004, to improve the
chances for the single-board proposal being heard by the church's
legislative assembly, General Conference. 

"I felt that the general church would not listen to the rest of the proposal
if we did not get this body out of the way," said Edna Williams of Tuskegee,
Ala., the member who made the motion during GCOM's April 19-23 meeting. If
the council proceeds with that recommendation, the final decision would rest
with General Conference.

Both actions represent the first steps by the full GCOM in carrying out a
2000 General Conference mandate to develop the most effective design for the
work of the church's general agencies. The GCOM will bring a proposal for
"Living Into the Future" to the 2004 assembly in Pittsburgh.

Council members struggled with the proposal during their meeting,
incorporating prayer and small-group discussions into their process and
maintaining a good working spirit throughout the give and take. All but 12
of the 82 members attended. They began working on the proposal at the end of
the third day of their meeting, laboring on it up to the closing worship
service. Though frustrated at times, by meeting's end the members had agreed
on basic concepts that were passed on to a writing team for detail work. 

The writing team will report back to the GCOM in October, when the council
meets in Pittsburgh. "The October meeting of the council is now the critical
time of decision about several of these matters," said Bishop Edward Paup,
president of GCOM and bishop of the church's Portland (Ore.) Area, after the
meeting.

A key detail yet to be defined involves the fate of most of the general
agency governing boards. The original proposal called for dissolving them
and transferring their oversight responsibilities to the new common,
connectional table. However, the GCOM members didn't like the word
"dissolution," preferring instead to state that the duties of the boards
would be "incorporated" into the portfolio of the new table. They stopped
short of endorsing the outright elimination of the governing boards, though
several members noted outside the meeting that that's the direction in which
they're heading.

The council agreed that most of the agencies should be represented at the
table: the boards of Church and Society, Global Ministries, Discipleship,
and Higher Education and Ministry; the commissions on Archives and History,
Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, Religion and Race, and the
Status and Role of Women; the General Council on Finance and Administration;
United Methodist Communications; and United Methodist Men. The United
Methodist Publishing House would keep a separate governing board, and the
council was undecided about the Board of Pension and Health Benefits, partly
because of questions regarding federal laws.

Top staff executives, or general secretaries, of some of the agencies raised
concerns about the proposal (see sidebar). The executives have voice on the
GCOM but no vote.

Ending GCOM

By adopting the motion regarding its own dissolution, GCOM is sending a
message to the church that it's willing to be part of the movement toward
the common table, Paup said. 
It also is making clear that it is not seeking to gain power through the
creation of the new common table.

The council, with offices in Dayton, Ohio, coordinates the program work of
the denomination's general agencies, but its reason for being has long been
questioned in light of the fact that it has little or no clout for enforcing
accountability. One of the GCOM's primary responsibilities is to elect the
general secretaries of the general agencies, but even that has been
criticized by some people on and off the council as largely a
rubber-stamping affair. It also administers the World Service Contingency
Fund and handles other duties, including assignments from General
Conference.

When Williams' motion was discussed, the question arose as to whether GCOM
should survive beyond 2004 if General Conference rejects the idea of
creating the single governing board. "My answer was no," Williams said
later. "Whatever happens, GCOM would be dissolved."

However, other members said the church would need an entity to coordinate
work and handle issues that arise during the four-year periods between
General Conferences, whether that's GCOM or another entity, such as the
Council of Bishops. "Somebody's going to have to do that work," said Seong
Kwan Rhee of Northville, Mich. "The need to do the work isn't going away."

Paup made a point of expressing appreciation for the GCOM staff as well as
concern about the proposal's possible impact on the 20 employees.
 
GCOM narrowly escaped liquidation at the 2000 General Conference, but it
received a new lease on life and the mandate to come up with a new proposal
using transformational directions offered by a Connectional Process Team.
The CPT had been formed by the 1996 General Conference in an attempt to
improve the way the church operates, but the 2000 assembly rejected the
team's proposals, retaining only its philosophical tenets.

GCOM members are working on a tight timeline to get their own proposal
together and share it with the church before the 2004 General Conference. In
October, the council will receive the writing team's draft and refine it,
then pass it on to its legislative committee for further work. The final
legislation must be submitted for General Conference by Oct. 1, 2003.

Bishop Joseph Yeakel of Smithsburg, Md., acting as a consultant to the
group, underscored the urgency facing the council as he offered parameters
for discussing the proposal. "It seems to me that you cannot afford to not
adopt a model at this meeting." 

Some members, such as Carl Young of Edmond, Okla., wondered whether GCOM has
enough time to develop its proposal and do the advance work necessary with
annual conferences and General Conference delegates. "I am very pessimistic
about our ability to make this drastic a change and let this fall on
receptive ears in all the annual conferences," he said before one of the
sessions. "... I think the fence is too high."

Others were less concerned. "I think we'll be OK," said the Rev. Hope Morgan
Ward of Raleigh, N.C., a writing team member. "We have time to do a good
process." 

Governance, accountability

The "Living Into the Future" proposal has been on a fast track since top
GCOM executive Daniel Church presented it to the council last October in
Miami. The council's Servant Leadership Team, which acts as GCOM's executive
committee, adopted the proposal in February and brought it to Oklahoma City.

Several GCOM speakers emphasized that the proposal is about governance and
accountability, not consolidating power or doing away with ministries.

"We're not talking about elimination of ministries," Paup said in an
interview. "We're talking about a different way of ordering the means by
which those ministries are administered in the church and beyond." How can
the church best order its life in community so that the Gospel can be
carried into the world? he said. 

Bishop John Hopkins of the Minnesota Area said he perceived some confusion
around governance, administration and ministry. "The people who actually do
the ministry - we want them to have the power," he said. The governance is
needed to "get the power out."

The council spent considerable time on the proposal's first recommendation,
which called for the creation of a single governing board. The Rev. Andy
Langford of Matthews, N.C., who helped write that draft of the proposal,
urged his fellow council members not to be timid in adopting the
recommendation.

"I think, in fact, our church is in crisis," he said. "Since we created our
current structure (in 1968), our church has lost in the United States
one-third of its membership." Its share of the Christian population has gone
from 6 to 3 percent, he said.

"This church is not efficient; it is not effective; it is not faithful to
the task of making disciples of Jesus Christ," Langford said. Any
corporation that lost half of its market share and one-third of its
customers would fire its staff and change the structure, he said.
"If we don't take action right now, it is going to be too late."

The discussion around the first recommendation prompted a reflection on the
value of GCOM itself and whether it has the power to hold other agencies
accountable.

"The central thesis to me is, is there a constitutional mandate that clearly
gives to GCOM the right to govern and hold accountable?" said Burnham
Robinson of Fort Worth, Texas. He doesn't see the general secretaries
attending GCOM meetings with data to prove that they've been wise stewards
in making disciples of Christ, he said. "How can we hold them accountable?
How could any group hold them accountable unless it has codified in (The
Book of) Discipline specific rights to do that?" 

Roland Siegrist of Linz, Austria, said the church needed some sort of
steering body. "I never saw a big entity without a steering unit." 

With the exception of a handful of votes - three or four against and two
abstaining - the council approved the recommendation to create the common
table. Later, they approved a motion from Bishop Rhymes Moncure of the
Nebraska Area combining the recommendation with a second one specifying
agencies that would be at the table.

Moncure cautioned against ending up with a proposal that merely rearranges
the church furniture. He recalled big family gatherings, where some members
sat at the dinner table and others were relegated to eating at card tables
or ironing boards. A similar situation exists in the church, where some
agencies and individuals are sitting at the card tables and ironing boards,
he said. "With the new proposal of a common table, we wish to dismantle
those tables. I just don't want to see them set up in a new design but
really have a common table where all are equal."

The fact that the council stopped short of calling for the dissolution of
the governing boards "was a major setback," Langford said later. "They
essentially refused to make a decision about the general agencies' governing
structures. What they said is, 'We may do it and we may not.' ... I think
people got cold feet at the end."

Seeking input

After addressing the first two key recommendations, the council referred to
its writing team about 20 others addressing the structure and operation of
the new board.

Throughout the discussion, council members raised concerns that had been
expressed in preceding months about the "Living Into the Future" proposal,
such as whether the agencies would lose valuable expertise with the
dissolution of their boards, and whether diversity in the denomination's
leadership would be diminished. 

"I would like to see some changes, but I am deeply concerned about the
people who will be at the table," said the Rev. Shirley Montoya, of Kayenta,
Ariz. For a Native American, getting elected to an annual conference is
difficult and to General Conference almost impossible, she said. How can the
church empower people on reservations to become members of such a board? she
asked.

As the meeting drew to a close, GCOM members brainstormed on ideas and
questions about the process. How many members should the single board have,
and should they be sent as representatives of the individual agencies or
elected? What are the legal implications of dissolving multiple corporate
bodies in the church? What can be learned from the ill-fated CPT experience
in the 1997-2000 quadrennium? 

"We as a group have not spent time talking about the theological and
ecclesiological underpinnings of this document," said Jana Bennett of
Durham, N.C. The council must discuss those points because people will ask
about the rationale, she said.

Jay Williams of Buffalo, N.Y., suggested developing a statement of purpose
and mission, as well as key talking points, for members to use when speaking
around the connection.

GCOM members emphasized the need for input from around the church,
particularly from general agencies but also from annual conferences and
local congregations. The proposal is available at http://www.gcom-umc.org/
online.

Everyone should feel respected and know their thoughts are taken seriously,
Paup said. "My hope is that we can try to be together in the process so that
all feel heard."
# # #
*Tanton is news editor for United Methodist News Service.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org


Browse month . . . Browse month (sort by Source) . . . Advanced Search & Browse . . . WFN Home