Making regionalization a reality for the church

Key points:

• United Methodist leaders from around the globe are engaged in a significant reimagining of the Book of Discipline.
• They are seeking to specify what provisions apply denomination-wide and what can be adapted by the newly created regional conferences.
• They also heard an update on the formation of the new U.S. regional conference.

Meeting in Denmark, United Methodists found themselves pondering a variation on a question made famous by a fictional Dane: “To be or not to be.”

Specifically, the leaders were considering what parts of the denomination’s organization and administration are to be — or not to be — essential across The United Methodist Church.

The Feb. 6-9 meeting in Copenhagen brought together more than 80 United Methodist leaders from four continents to press forward with a years-long effort to revamp the Book of Discipline, the denomination’s main policy book. The leaders want to make clear what parts of the Discipline bind all United Methodists together and what parts can be adjusted by the church’s different geographic regions.

That work has only grown more urgent now that United Methodist voters have ratified regionalization.

The restructuring creates nine regional conferences with equal authority to adapt the Discipline — the eight former central conferences in Africa, Europe and the Philippines and a newly created regional conference that encompasses the entire United States. With ratification, there are now four regional conferences in Africa, three in Europe, one in the Philippines and soon-to-be one in the U.S.

Ultimately, the leaders hope their work will make the idea of regionalization into a practical reality for how United Methodists carry out ministry worldwide.

Bishop Harald Rückert, who chaired the gathering, explained the assignment to the congregation of Jerusalem United Methodist Church, where those gathered worshipped Feb. 8.

“Basically, we are tasked to try to help our church move into the future where we grant each other in our connection more freedom to do mission in a way that really addresses the needs of our context,” the German bishop said.

He added that the goal is “to grant us this freedom and at the same time stay together united as one United Methodist Church.”

The work in Copenhagen eventually will result in legislation that will be up for approval by the next General Conference, which is scheduled to meet in 2028.

The denomination’s top lawmaking assembly, in the Discipline’s Paragraph 101, authorized the leaders to propose what’s being called the General Book of Discipline that truly applies worldwide.

Paragraph 101 lists the parts of the Discipline that already are not up for adaptation. These essentials include the denomination’s constitution, doctrinal standards and Social Principles. What is under discussion is the Discipline’s Part VI — the policy book’s biggest section — which deals with matters of church organization and administration.

As Paragraph 101 dictates, church leaders are combing through Part VI to propose which provisions should remain in the nonadaptable General Book of Discipline and which should be moved to a newly created Part VII that contains the provisions that  each regional conference can adapt.

The hope is that the work will result in a slimmer, more universal Discipline that doesn’t set up U.S. church policies as the default around which United Methodist regions in Africa, Asia and Europe must adapt.

Leading the work is the group Rückert chairs — what is now called the Standing Committee on Regional Conference Matters Outside the USA (previously the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters). The group is a permanent legislative committee of General Conference that meets between sessions. It is the only church body with a majority of its members from outside the U.S.

The standing committee is also the body that submitted the regionalization legislation to the 2024 General Conference — with the support of the Connectional Table, a denomination-wide leadership body, and the Christmas Covenant, a grassroots group of Filipino, African and European church members.

Assisting the work on the General Book of Discipline are members of the Connectional Table, the denomination’s Committee on Faith and Order and leaders of the Study of Ministry Commission.

Together these church leaders are developing the proposals that the standing committee ultimately will submit to General Conference.

The standing committee plans to make final decisions on its legislation to General Conference at its next in-person meeting in February 2027.

In the meantime, committee members are finalizing and translating drafts of their proposed delineations of provisions in Part VI and Part VII.

West Angola Conference Bishop Gaspar João Domingos, the standing committee’s vice chair, urged all present to dedicate their work to God.

“At the end, we are but stewards of his cause,” the Portuguese-speaking Domingos said through an interpreter.

General Conference first authorized the development of a General Book of Discipline in 2012 to provide more clarity for the adaptative work the denomination’s constitution long allowed in the former central conferences even before regionalization.

Nordic-Baltic-Ukraine Area Bishop Knut Refsdal — whose area includes Denmark — showed some of the adaptive work already taking place, sharing copies of the supplemental Discipline that the Northern Europe and Eurasia Central Conference approved last year.

Now with the ratification of regionalization, a new U.S. regional conference will have the opportunity to put together its own supplement.

At present, the bishops are forming an interim committee that will organize the first U.S. regional conference that’s set to convene after the 2028 General Conference.

This will be just an organizing body. U.S. annual conferences — bodies comprising multiple churches — will elect the General Conference and jurisdictional delegates who will be the voters at the regional conference.

Bishop Cynthia Moore-Koikoi, who leads the Eastern Pennsylvania and Greater New Jersey conferences, is convening the interim committee. She told those gathered in Copenhagen that the bishops are still getting confirmation from their nominees to serve on the committee. Once people have made a commitment, the bishops will announce their names, and the group can begin planning.

Moore-Koikoi asked all those gathered for their prayers and patience for the task ahead.

“The U.S. has been the center of the universe of United Methodism since its inception. That is our orientation,” she said. “We are now being disoriented. It’s going to take us a while to get adjusted to that — because we don’t even know the ways in which our perspective has been distorted because of our orientation.”

She likened the process to what happened when humans first learned the Earth was not the center of the universe.

“It took a while for humanity to get used to that idea,” she said. “It’s going to take the U.S. United Methodist Church a while to adjust to that idea. And while we adjust, I’m sure that we will do some offending, and so let me apologize in advance as a U.S. bishop for offending.”

The Rev. Byron Thomas, a Connectional Table member from Georgia, added that many U.S. United Methodists are excited about the possibilities. He counts himself among those who see “this as a movement of the Holy Spirit into an exciting new future.”

The church leaders in Copenhagen expressed their prayers and support as United Methodists in the U.S. embark on de-centering themselves.

The Rev. Hilde Marie Movafagh, a member of the Committee on Faith and Order from Norway, offered encouragement.

“It’s not only about equality and reorganizing and all that mess we’re right into right now,” she said. “But it’s the idea that for American Methodists to be an American region is a good thing — where you get to talk about how you can be the church in America the best American way possible. That’s a good conversation to have.”

The church leaders also expressed excitement for the work ahead.

“All this is challenging work,” the Rev. Joseph Estadilla, a standing committee member from the Philippines, told United Methodist News. “But I look positively on the future of what our church will be, especially being much more inclusive, because the basic foundation of our church, which is the Book of Discipline, is now being written with that heart in mind of people within the different regions.”

Rückert, the chair, said that what touched his heart most about the gathering wasn’t the work being accomplished but the way United Methodists from very different regional contexts did the work together. Even as the denomination allows more autonomy in its different regions, he sees signs that leaders worldwide are drawing closer together in their sense of mission.

“It’s not all about legislation only,” he told United Methodist News. “It’s the atmosphere in this room where people around the globe really display the worldwide nature of the church. It can be smelled. It can be breathed. It can be experienced how it feels to be a worldwide connection.”

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 UM News Digest.