wfn.org | Meeting in Switzerland, Council on Ministries takes a global

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Nov. 4, 1998	Contact: Thomas S. McAnally((615)742-5470(Nashville,
Tenn.     {647}

NOTE: Photos are available with this story. A full text of the
"Fulfilling Christ's Mission" document mentioned below will be added to
the end of this story on the United Methodist News Service's World Wide
Web site at http://www.umc.org/umns/ as soon as the edited version is
available from GCOM. See UMNS story #565 for list of GCOM members and
the countries they visited prior to the Switzerland meeting.

By Tom McAnally*

HASLIBURG REUTI, Switzerland (UMNS) -  Visits to United Methodist work
in Africa, Europe and the Philippines made an obvious difference in the
decisions reached by governing members of the church's General Council
on Ministries during their regular semi-annual meeting.

Teams of three or four members and staff visited 22 locations in central
conferences outside the United States immediately before the Oct. 26-30
meeting, which was held at a United Methodist-owned hotel in the
mountains of central Switzerland. The meeting marked the first time the
governing body of any churchwide agency has met outside the United
States.

Souvenirs from the visits were placed on the altar in the meeting room
and served as constant reminders of the church's global outreach and the
fact that United Methodism is not, as one members observed, a U.S.
church with outposts in other countries. Several actions taken during
the meeting concerned world matters and called for global sensitivity.

During a Swiss cultural event at the meeting, Claudia Bloem, a young lay
delegate from the Switzerland-France Annual Conference to the 1996
General Conference, brought greetings and praised the group for meeting
in her country. 

While expressing appreciation for her experience as a delegate to the
1996 conference in Denver, Bloem said it was difficult for her because
"most issues were American issues."  Representation at the top
legislative gathering is based on membership. The United States has 8.5
million members, while there are about 1 million members in other
countries. Of the nearly 1,000 delegates at the 1996 conference, about
160 were from outside the United States.  

GCOM members spent a major portion of their meeting in Switzerland
perfecting a document that will be used to evaluate the work of all the
church's program agencies. Bishop Woodrow Hearn of Houston, president of
the GCOM board,  said the document will also be a "plumb line" for use
by the agencies as they project their program and budget needs for the
2001-2004 quadrennium. It will also be used by GCOM as it considers
churchwide themes or emphases, and  determines program and financial
needs for the future. 

The statement, titled "Fulfilling Christ's Mission in the Life of the
United Methodist Church," is the culmination of a process that included
two GCOM-sponsored consultations exploring the missional direction of
the denomination. 

The statement, which will undergo further editing before its release,
commits the United Methodist Church to being a "worldwide church with
full and just participation throughout our connection." It also calls
for deeper relationships with other churches in the Methodist family.

The statement includes 11 points that GCOM members say must be addressed
by agencies as they help the church fulfill the biblical mandate of
making disciples of Jesus Christ.  These include "inviting and nurturing
people in spiritual growth centered in scripture and our Wesleyan
heritage," and "developing lay and clergy leaders empowered by the Holy
Spirit to lead the church in spiritual transformation and service."

Other points call for sharing the Gospel of  Christ in a variety of
ways; practicing hospitality and celebrating differences; building
"Christ-like" community; practicing collaborative decision
making-processes throughout the church; communicating effectively and
compassionately God's movement throughout the church and world; speaking
prophetically to the realities of many cultures; and working toward
Christian unity and strengthening inter-religious relationships.

Several actions taken during the meeting reflected a global sensitivity.
These included recommendations that GCOM:

* assist in creating strategies for the production of resources in
languages other than English;
* help develop leadership materials in other languages;
* establish a multilingual resource task force for the next quadrennium
(2001-2004) to address concerns related to the production of
multilanguage resources and that a workshop be held for writers;
* explore the need for the churchwide Commission on Religion and Race
and Commission on the Status and Role of Women to begin a process of
dealing with sexism and racism in United Methodist conferences outside
the United States;
* facilitate a consultation with appropriate agencies to formulate a
plan for increasing the awareness of missionaries about local cultures
and  issues of cultural, ethnic, racial and tribal differences;
* provide three hours at its next meeting in April for team members who
visited the central conferences in October to discuss with GCOM members
of those conferences issues of cultural, ethnic and racial
discrimination in the global church. Of the 76 GCOM members, nine are
from outside the United States.

The denomination's global nature is certain to be an issue at the
church's next General Conference in Cleveland, May 2-12, 2000. GCOM
members heard a progress report from  members of the Connectional
Process Team (CPT), created by the 1996 General Conference to set a
"transformational direction" for the church beyond 2000.  Its mandate
also includes proposing organizational changes as needed and continuing
a study of the "global nature of the church" begun by the Council of
Bishops.  

The CPT will release the first draft of its proposals early in 1999. At
a recent meeting, it agreed to propose a totally new "General
Conference" every four years, including an equal number of
representatives from annual conferences throughout the world. The United
States would be a "central" conference, a designation now given to
conferences in other countries. It would have its own legislative
gathering every four years, possibly in conjunction with the new General
Conference if it is held in the United States. (See UMNS story #608.)  

During the meeting, host Bishop Heinrich Bolleter, of the church's
Central and Southern Europe Central Conference, brought greetings to the
GCOM members and visitors. Bolleter resides in Zurich, Switzerland, and
leads a vast area that includes 19 language groups.

David Lundquist is staff executive of the GCOM, which has offices in
Dayton, Ohio. The agency is charged by the church's Book of Discipline
to "facilitate the church's program life . . . encourage, coordinate and
support the general agencies between sessions of the General Conference
. . . (and) study the connectional structures" of the church.  It is
also asked to "devise and implement measures to assure full, effective
representation and participation" of central conference members in the
life of the church.

In other business, the GCOM elected all top staff executives of the
churchwide program agencies who had been nominated by the governing
boards of their  respective agencies. Elected for the  first time was
the Rev. Chester Jones, new general secretary for the Commission on
Religion and Race. Barbara Ricks Thompson, retired executive of the
commission, was honored during the meeting. 

# # #

*McAnally is director of United Methodist News Service, based in
Nashville, Tenn.

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