After regionalization, church must prioritize unity

Key points:

• The United Methodist Church’s move to regionalization affirms global diversity while calling the church to choose unity grounded in shared constitutional commitments and a gospel vision of oneness.
• This entails naming non-negotiables and publishing a clear matrix that separates global, regional and local authority to prevent potential conflicts.
• The connection must be embodied through covenanted institutions, and conflicts should follow a pastoral-first pathway of mediation before narrow judicial action.
• Leaders must renew common spiritual practices, honest catechesis and cross-regional mission, trusting Christ to bind the body together in love.

 

The Rev. Dr. Luan-Vu “Lui” Tran.
Photo courtesy of the author.

When The United Methodist Church’s General Conference passed the Worldwide Regionalization plan last year, delegates acknowledged what has long been true: The denomination is not a monolith but a global body of disciples shaped by different histories, cultures and social contexts.

Jesus prays that his followers “may all be one,” not as sameness but as a communion grounded in God’s love (John 17:21). The New Testament church itself wrestled with unity across diversity, and the Council of Jerusalem models how discernment can honor shared faith while allowing contextual practices (Acts 15).

What is the regionalization plan?

At its core, the plan renames the central conferences as regional conferences and establishes a U.S. Regional Conference encompassing the five existing jurisdictions. Each region is granted authority to adapt significant portions of the General Book of Discipline and adopt its Regional Discipline with distinct ministerial and ethical standards to reflect its cultural and missional context. All regions operate under shared doctrinal standards, but with flexibility in governance, ordination and social witness.

The plan allows regions greater flexibility to adapt governance and ministry to their social and missional contexts, recognizing that what faithfully serves Methodists in Zimbabwe may look different from what sustains Methodists in the Philippines or the United States.

Ratified by the annual conference voters with 91.6% approval and canvassed by the Council of Bishops, the constitutional amendments on regionalization became effective immediately on Nov. 5.

Done well, regionalization can make the church more just, nimble and truly global. Done poorly, it could harden divisions and unravel the connection we have spent decades building.

The crucial question now isn’t if regionalization happens but how we remain one church afterward.

Unity without uniformity

Unity is not sameness. Across all regions we share doctrinal standards (Articles of Religion, Confession of Faith), an episcopal and itinerant system, and connectional mission and finance. Within those guardrails, regions rightly adapt ministry to context. Scripture calls us to one body with many members and to welcome one another on disputable matters, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit. Our charge is covenantal: hold core commitments, practice mutual forbearance and let accountable love — not coercion — bind the connection.

But such freedom demands new forms of discipline. If we simply loosen connectional ties without reimagining accountability, regionalization will degenerate into fragmentation. The urgent task before us is to define how difference can live within covenant.

To ensure that contextual freedom strengthens rather than frays our common life, we must name and prioritize the guardrails that translate covenant into accountable practice.

The guardrails of connection

First, we must clarify what is shared across all regions. The earliest Christian communities “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).

In that spirit, a short list of constitutional commitments — our basic doctrinal affirmations (Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith), our episcopal and itinerant system, and our shared financial and mission obligations — remains universal. These non-negotiables also imply recognition of orders and membership across regions and continued constitutional review by the Judicial Council. Naming them clearly helps every region adapt confidently without testing the foundations each time.

Second, we should publish a clear “matrix of authority,” specifying which matters are global-connectional, which are regional and which are local. The church in Acts differentiated questions that required a global word from matters best entrusted to local leaders for wise administration (Acts 6 and 15). As a working example:

• Global-connectional — doctrine, episcopacy, connectional finance, mission, constitutional review
• Regional — ordination standards and processes, social teaching and public witness, clergy benefits, conference discipline (within constitutional guardrails)
• Local — property use, ministry methods, language and worship resources within regional law

Third, we must strengthen the institutions that embody connection: our pension systems, missionary agencies and educational partnerships. Paul organized cross-regional generosity so that “the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little,” teaching that abundance in one place supplies need in another (2 Corinthians 8 and 9).

Likewise, regions that participate in these institutions should do so through covenants that define minimum contributions, data transparency and audits, portability of benefits and credentials, and orderly exit procedures, so that shared work — and care for people — endures beyond moments of disagreement. In bearing one another’s burdens, we fulfill the law of Christ.

Finally, we should ensure that dispute resolution is pastoral before it is judicial. Jesus sets a pattern of direct conversation, mediation and communal discernment aimed at restoration (Matthew 18:15-20). Paul warns against dragging family disputes into adversarial courts that harden conflict (1 Corinthians 6:1-7).

In that spirit, trained facilitators, clear timelines and restorative practices should be our first response when regions or leaders clash. As a last resort, a narrow appeal to the Judicial Council — limited to constitutionality and fair process — serves as a safety valve, with remedies like remand for correction rather than policy-making from the bench.

Pastoral work for a global family

Structure alone cannot sustain unity. We must renew the relational and spiritual practices that remind us who we are. Christ gives apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers “to equip the saints” until we grow up into the measure of Christ’s fullness (Ephesians 4:11-16). Shared mission projects, clergy exchanges and global prayer observances create living bonds that no constitutional document can substitute.

The vision of a countless multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language worshipping before the Lamb teaches us to expect — and rejoice in — holy diversity gathered into one praise (Revelation 7:9). Seminaries and training programs must form leaders who understand cross-cultural ministry and can hold difference without hostility.

We also need honest catechesis. Regionalization should not be sold as moral retreat or political victory. Congregations deserve clear teaching on what this new structure means: that regions will differ on practice, but we remain joined in creed, mission and mutual responsibility.

Facing the risk — and the gift

Let us be realistic: Some will still leave. Some will struggle to accept decisions made in other parts of the world. Scripture is candid about the difficulty of life together and yet calls us, “so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). The mind of Christ leads us to do nothing from selfish ambition but to look to the interests of others. Where separation is necessary, let it be charitable and orderly; what matters is how we disagree and whether fellowship endures across difference.

Regionalization, rightly understood, is not the end of connectionalism. It is the next chapter of it. It calls us to choose unity again, not because we all agree, but because we belong to one another in Jesus Christ.

The United Methodist Church’s unity after regionalization will not depend on a single vote, policy or episcopal pronouncement. It will depend on the daily decisions of clergy and laity to practice covenantal love — to pray together, to serve together and to stay at the table long enough for grace to work its way through our differences.

Unity, in the end, is not a structure. It is a spiritual discipline and commitment to one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.

Tran is assistant chancellor for church law of the California-Pacific Annual Conference. He served on the Judicial Council from 2016 to 2025 and is currently the senior pastor of Garden Grove United Methodist Church. He is also the founder of UMChurchLaw.com, a website designed to provide “church leaders with clear, practical and theologically grounded resources on the law and polity of The United Methodist Church.”

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