Georgia unification gains final approval

Key points

• The United Methodist Church’s Southeastern Jurisdiction has approved the union of the North Georgia and South Georgia conferences.
• Both missional and financial reasons led to the unification.
• The newly formed Georgia Conference will begin operations in January 2027 with more than 215,000 members.

United Methodists from across the Southeastern U.S. met online the evening of Aug. 11 with Georgia on their minds.

By a vote of 291 to 0, Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference delegates unanimously supported a plan to unify the North Georgia and South Georgia annual conferences into one.

“Holy God, we give thanks for these delegates who have cast votes to approve unification,” said Bishop Robin Dease, who has led both Georgia conferences since September 2024. She prayed with those meeting online as well as a small group of the jurisdiction’s leaders who joined her at the North Georgia Conference office in Duluth, Georgia.

“As this decision now becomes a part of our shared story, turn our hearts upon the future you are preparing for us,” she continued. “Make this unification more than just an administrative change, O God, but make it a holy opportunity to deepen our commitment, to widen our welcome and to strengthen our ministries, so that lives might be transformed for your kingdom’s sake.”

With the jurisdictional conference’s vote, the unification has received the final approval needed for the newly united Georgia Conference to begin operations in January 2027.

The new conference — formed in the wake of the pandemic and church disaffiliations — brings together under one structure what historically has been one of the largest-membership United Methodist annual conferences in the U.S. with one of the smallest.

Altogether, the unified conference will have more the 215,000 members in 549 churches. As of 2025, North Georgia had 196,836 members and 962 clergy. South Georgia had 18,500 members and 284 clergy.

The Georgia Conference will encompass most of the state including Cockspur Island, where Methodism founders John and Charles Wesley first set foot in the American colonies. Four United Methodist churches in north Georgia near the Tennessee/Georgia state line will remain part of the Holston Annual Conference, as they have been for more than 100 years.

An annual conference is “the basic body” of the denomination — consisting of multiple congregations and other ministries such as camps and college ministries in a geographical area. It’s also the meeting each conference must hold at least once a year. At present, The United Methodist Church has 51 annual conferences in the U.S. This unification brings that number down to 50.  

The union already has broad support among the United Methodists most affected. Earlier this year, the South Georgia Annual Conference voted 96.6% in favor of the move, with only 10 negative votes. The North Georgia Annual Conference then voted 96% in favor, with 42 “no” votes.

Next up in September, the two annual conferences will hold a joint hybrid Georgia Unifying Conference, which will adopt a 2027 budget, a new district map and new leadership slate.

Those who worked on developing the plan of union stress that the purpose of unification is to strengthen the United Methodist presence across the state of Georgia so more people can encounter Christ and communities can be transformed.

The mission field is large. Organizers of the unification effort estimate that more than 8 million Georgians are not part of a church or another faith community.

In the words of the plan for organization, the hope is that with the nimbleness and reduced overhead costs of one structure, a single conference will be able to more effectively deploy United Methodists to “serve incarnational ministries” rather than populate “duplicate mandatory committees.” Both conferences have already started to plant new congregations.

Scott Cleaveland, South Georgia Conference’s lay leader, and Kim Powell, North Georgia Conference lay leader, jointly presented the motion to unite to the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference.

“We believe the unification plan to be an opportunity to love each other and to do good works for the sake of the denomination and for the kingdom of God,” Powell said. “The Georgia Task Force has worked tirelessly to find ways to unite our conferences into one mission field — prayerfully planning and dreaming of ways to move forward with ideas that are innovative and inclusive.”

Cleaveland added, referencing the denomination’s new vision statement: “We ask that you join us in the good work by voting to approve our unification, so that we can love boldly, serve joyfully and lead courageously as United Methodists.”

However, organizers acknowledge that finances also are a driver of the change.

Both conferences have seen a reduction of congregations — both from disaffiliations and from the closures of churches that were no longer financially sustainable.

Since 2022, North Georgia’s budget went down 38.5% and its church count went down 42%. During the same period, South Georgia’s budget went down 72%, and its number of churches went down 74%.

Soon after Dease became bishop of both conferences in 2024, leaders in North Georgia and South Georgia began exploring the possibility of moving forward as a unified annual conference under one bishop.

Some 20 working groups consisting of more than 200 lay and clergy United Methodists from both conferences contributed to the Georgia Unification Plan unveiled in May this year.

The newly unified conference will have more than $235 million in net assets to support retired clergy, local churches and other ministry efforts.

For much of their 200-year history, the people called Methodist in Georgia shared a bishop. But between 1988 and 2023, the two annual conferences were two separate episcopal areas — with each having its own assigned bishop.

This move brings United Methodists across the state closer together. Even before this summer’s votes on the unification plan, the conferences’ cabinets have been meeting together and the conference boards of ordained ministry have been working to ensure they have similar requirements for ministerial candidates.

The unified conference will have one cabinet consisting of the district superintendents who advise the bishop and one board of ordained ministry.

However, the two conferences are keeping one part of their ministry separate for now. 

They each elected their General Conference and jurisdictional conference delegations this year. That means each will have its own slate of delegates when General Conference and the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference next meet in 2028. They also will have their own delegations when the first U.S. Regional Conference convenes in spring 2029.

United Methodists have seen a number of conferences unify in recent years as the denomination has struggled with decades of decreasing U.S. membership and then the recent wave of church departures.

The most recent unification in 2024 brought together the Central Texas, North Texas and Northwest Texas annual conferences into the Horizon Texas Conference that now stretches from the Texas Panhandle south to almost Austin, north to the Oklahoma border and east to Commerce.

At present, the East Ohio and West Ohio conferences, which already share a bishop, are also exploring becoming one conference.

At the end of the Aug. 11 meeting, Dease asked God to “make us a people who trust in your unfolding work.”

Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free Daily or Friday Digests.