General Conference Basics – Terms to Know
By: Rev.Janet Craswell

Between now and the end of April, we will be talking about the upcoming General Conference a lot. Before we get into the substance of the issues before General Conference, here are some basics terms to know:

United Methodists use the word “conference” in a special way. It is not like the professional conferences you might attend with panels, presentations, and networking. UM Conferences are simultaneously geographic areas, associations for shared ministry, and the way we make decisions within the church.
General Conference (GC): the legislative body that governs the entire United Methodist Church worldwide. Every four years, GC meets to pass budgets, set priorities, and amend our Book of Discipline – the rulebook of the United Methodist Church (UMC). GC is made up of delegates elected from every annual conference and central conference in the UMC. Delegates are one-half clergy and one-half laity.

The UMC is structured much like the United States government. In that sense, the General Conference is like the US Congress, with one important exception – GC is the only body that can speak for the entire United Methodist Church. We have bishops, but they do not speak for the whole church. And there is no equivalent of a presidential veto in the UMC. We do have a Supreme Court equivalent, called the Judicial Council.

Annual Conference: United Methodists within a specific geographic area within the United States. National UMC is part of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference (BWC). If we are still working with the US government analogy, the annual conference is like a state, and the meeting of the annual conference is like the state assembly.

Central Conference: United Methodists within a specific geographic area outside of the United States. There are central conferences throughout Africa, Europe, and the Philippines.
Regionalization: one big issue that may come before General Conference this year is regionalization. It has to do with how churches in each geographic region can make locally appropriate changes to the Book of Discipline.

Right now, central conferences can amend the Book of Discipline to fit their specific contexts. For instance, church property rules must adapt to the legal framework of each country. Some central conferences have adopted different educational requirements for their clergy, to adjust to the lack of university or seminary access. Such central conference changes do not have to come before the whole General Conference for approval.

But US-based annual conferences may not make local, contextual changes. Any change that US annual conferences want to make must go before the entire, worldwide General Conference.
Why is regionalization especially important? Regionalization would make it possible for the US conferences to make locally appropriate changes to the Book of Discipline. Many Reconciling Churches, such as National UMC, think regionalization is the most likely path to removing the anti-LGBTQ wording in the current Book of Discipline.