Editor’s Note: The Call to Action Interim Operations Team took the lead in pressing for specific change, including agency reorganization, within the UMC. Here is its just-released final report: This report is a final update from the Interim Operations Team (IOT) named by the Council of Bishops (COB) and the Connectional Table (CT) in late 2010. The 2010 Call to Action Report envisioned that the IOT would be a diverse team, accountable to the COB/CT, charged to identify issues and to develop a plan based on successful approaches used in other [...]
Read More...Call to Action Interim Operations Team issues final report
September 28, 2012 Posted by Leave a Comment
Q&A: On bringing new life to a ‘dying church’
September 21, 2012 Posted by Leave a Comment
The Rev. Paul Nixon is a UM minister, church consultant and author, based in Washington, D.C. His new book We Refused to Lead a Dying Church! (The Pilgrim Press) profiles 15 comeback congregations, eight of them United Methodist. He agreed to an email interview with managing editor Sam Hodges. You wrote a popular, influential book called I Refused to Lead a Dying Church! Now, a few years later, you’ve changed the pronoun, following up with We Refused to Lead a Dying Church! How is the sequel different and why do [...]
Read More...Casad leaving Connectional Table
September 4, 2012 Posted by Leave a Comment
Mary Brooke Casad is stepping down as executive secretary of the UMC’s Connectional Table. “As our denomination has taken on the adaptive challenge of creating, fostering and sustaining vital congregations, I have been prayerfully contemplating my role in this endeavor,” she said in a statement. “My resignation is based on a desire to be more engaged with my local church and community, and be a full ministry partner with my husband in his role as pastor.” Ms. Casad has led the Connectional Table since 2007. It’s comprised of UM bishops, [...]
Read More...Future of UMC requires acting on Call to Action
August 15, 2012 Posted by 1 Comment
By Bishop Robert Schnase, Special Contributor Editor’s note: This column is an excerpt, slightly adapted, from Bishop Robert Schnase’s episcopal address at the recent South Central Jurisdictional Conference in Oklahoma City. The Council of Bishops commissioned the Towers Watson Report, a 250-page in-depth analysis of our denomination. It shows an irrefutably unsustainable model for ministry into the future. Before General Conference meets again four years from now, the losses of membership and attendance in the United States will be as if we completely closed three conferences the size of the [...]
Read More...Text of Bishop Schnase’s episcopal address
July 27, 2012 Posted by 1 Comment
The following is a transcript of the Episcopal Address to the South Central Jurisdictional Conference on July 19, 2012, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by Missouri Conference Bishop, Robert Schnase. You [...]
Read More...Judicial Council did the denomination a favor
May 18, 2012 Posted by 2 Comments
By Bishop Mike Coyner, Special Contributor… You have probably heard the news that the Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church (which is kind of like our Supreme Court) ruled that the new structure passed by the General Conference was unconstitutional. Thus the hours and hours of work by the General Conference were overturned, and we are back to our current structure. The General Conference then rushed to pass the proposals from all the general agencies (except for the General Board of Church and Society which had no proposal) to [...]
Read More...For the Love of God: a response to Saturday night
April 29, 2012 Posted by Leave a Comment
No one can agree to share their toys so we will all go home with no change in structure? @pastor_clayton Parliamentary pandemonium broke out in the final General Administration Committee [...]
Read More...Backers of agency consolidation ponder what went wrong
April 27, 2012 Posted by 4 Comments
The dream some UMC leaders had of bringing most general church agencies under a single 15-member board, led by an executive, crashed and burned at General Conference on Friday. And the dreamers were left to lament their defeat in the General Administration Committee, and try to figure out what went wrong. “I trust the Holy Spirit is at work in all of this,” said the Rev. Adam Hamilton, who championed the single board approach. “I think it’s hard to look at making major change.” The General Administration Committee voted Friday [...]
Read More...Young Methodists React to Call to Action
April 26, 2012 Posted by 1 Comment
Even as the Rev. Adam Hamilton argued for the Call to Action reforms at General Conference last night, Twitter lit up with commentary from young people across the connection. While there were supportive words, much of the reaction was negative. Josh Hale (@expatminister) observed from Texas: “I’m seeing lots of Twitter chatter that challenges tonight’s CTA proposal…& little that buys in.” But interviews with young Methodists at General Conference, provided a fuller, more nuanced reaction. And Mr. Hamilton may have helped his cause by meeting with the younger attendees earlier [...]
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UM agency boards being reduced, but not reformed
By Robert Sparkman, Special Contributor… “We did not restructure the church, but at least we reduced the size of the boards.” That has been a consistent report from General Conference. Reducing the size of the boards was a recommendation of the Call to Action; the boards wrote petitions to accomplish that; and proposals were passed at the very end of General Conference. So far, so good. But look beneath the surface. The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry restructured itself in this way: five members, one from each jurisdiction; [...]
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