77: Seeking Unity and Transformation: Updates from the United Methodist Church's 2024 General Conference

Join in for an insightful episode with Pastor Jeff Bills, as we learn about the transformative decisions and pivotal moments from the United Methodist Church's 2024 General Conference. We welcome back Director of Communications for the Greater New Jersey United Methodist Conference, Pastor James Lee to share about  his conference experience, where unity and diversity collide to forge the church's future.

Our discussion explores a few monumental  changes, as the church makes strides towards greater inclusivity and global relevance including the ground-breaking acceptance of LGBTQ individuals in ministry roles and the church's efforts to update its social principles to echo the voices of its widespread congregation. Tune in for a candid exploration of how these landmark shifts are sculpting a more equitable and conscious church community, and witness the inner workings that continue to unite Methodists around the world.

Have more questions about this year's conference? Contact Jeff at jeff@meethope.org!

Thanks for being a part of the HOPE community as we continue conversations about faith and hope! You can learn more at meethope.org or find us on socials @meethopechurch. Join in for worship on Sundays at meethope.live! Have a question? Contact us at podcast@meethope.org.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the Meet Hope podcast, where we have conversations about faith and hope. Hope is one church made of people living out their faith through two expressions in person and online. We believe a hybrid faith experience can lead to a growing influence in our community and our world for the sake of others. Welcome to Hope.

Speaker 2: 0:28

Hey everybody, our world for the sake of others. Welcome to Hope. Hey everybody, welcome to the Meet Hope podcast. I'm Jeff Bills and I'm going to be hosting today and we have a topic that may be of interest to you. I hope it is. It's about General Conference of the United Methodist Church. It's possible that in your news consumption over the last couple of weeks you heard some reports coming out of the General Conference and so I wanted to take an opportunity to address that in this format. To address that in this format we have a special guest. I'll introduce him in a couple of minutes, but before I do I want to give you a little background about the structure of the Methodist Church, because I know many of you did not come out of the Methodist Church and so it's all kind of foreign to you, and so just to give a balcony view of the structure of our church. So the United Methodist Church is kind of divided into three branches, not unlike the federal government. So we have the Council of Bishops, which would be kind of the executive branch of the church. Then we have General Conference, and that would be kind of the executive branch of the church. Then we have General Conference and that would be the legislative branch. And then we have the Judicial Council, which is the Supreme Court, if you will, of the United Methodist Church.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Every four years the General Conference gathers, and it's delegates that are elected by conferences. So those are the areas for us. We're part of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference, so the country is divided into conferences and it's a global church and so there are conferences around the globe, and so every four years delegates from those conferences gather together and kind of set the direction for the church as a whole for the next four years. They address things like doctrine and social issues. They create a budget for the work of what we call the general church. So those are the things that collectively the United Methodist Church does. So we have these general boards or agencies within the Methodist Church the Board of Discipleship, for example, the Board of Global Missions, the Commission of Race and Religion, just to name a few and so they set budgets for those agencies to do their work. So that's kind of what General Conference exists to do. And so after they do their work, then the Council of Bishops oversees the work that's going on, and if there's ever any disputes or conflicts or questions, that would go to the Judicial Council.

Speaker 2: 3:29

Because of COVID, we didn't have a general conference in 2020. So the last time that general conference met officially was in 2016. There was a special gathering in 2018, which we may or may not get into, so it's been eight years since this group has met. So they met for two weeks. They were down in Charlotte, north Carolina. There was a number of critical things that they addressed. As you may know, there was a division of the church that took place really over earlier this year, where I think roughly 3,000 churches left the denomination. So, before I go any further, I want to introduce our guest today. I have with me the Reverend Pastor James Lee. James has been a guest on our podcast before. James is the Communications Director for the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference, as well as the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference. I was not at General Conference. James was, james was. So I wanted somebody who was actually there to share with you all what he saw and heard and what has come out of General Conference. So, with all of that, james welcome.

Speaker 3: 4:55

Jeff, it's good to be back. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: 4:57

Yeah, well, we're always glad to have you join with us. Last time you were here, we were talking about AI, which is something I know you're really passionate about, but now we're talking about General Conference. So this was your first experience going to General Conference.

Speaker 3: 5:13

Yeah, it was my first time I watched the 2019 special session on live stream, but being in person, this was definitely my first time. It was 10 days. Being in person, this was definitely my first time. It was 10 days, 10 very long days from April 23rd to May 3rd at the Charlotte Convention Center and, yeah, I had a very powerful experience. So I got to say going in, my only understanding was what happened in 2019. All my friends were saying you're going to general conference, it's going to be. You're like a war correspondent, you have to be prepared, prepare your heart. Like there's going to be a lot of divisiveness, potential conflict. People are going to say some really harmful things like be ready. And I did not see that at all when I was there. I did not see that at all when I was there. I got to say, from the opening worship, there was a cautious hope, was in the spirit, sort of was in the in the midst of uh disagreements and uh difficult discussions. Sure, um, it permeated through to the very end of the general conference.

Speaker 2: 6:32

Oh, that's encouraging.

Speaker 3: 6:33

It was a very powerful experience, for sure.

Speaker 2: 6:36

So describe for us what. What is a typical day like at general conference?

Speaker 3: 6:45

Sure. So every day is roughly 12 hours of work, for me at least. We officially start at 8 am, we go till probably 6 pm, but for me my day starts at 7. I'm probably back in my hotel room at 9. The first week it's all what's called legislative committees, so all the different legislations, all the things that people submit across the globe requesting to change in our book of discipline, gets put into different committees and the different committees discuss it and they add amendments to it and then they present it to the bigger body. So if it doesn't pass in legislative committee, then they present it to the bigger body, right? So if it doesn't pass in legislative committee, it doesn't go to the bigger body.

Speaker 3: 7:30

The second week is when it gets really busy, where the 862 delegates from across the globe all are in one room and we start looking at all of these legislations that were passed from the legislative committees the week prior. And the ones that passed in great majority are put into big groups called consent calendars, so they can be passed in kind of large groupings. And then some of the ones that were maybe it was like 20 people said yes but 15 people said no, right those then get put on the table, more of like one item at a time and there's discussion, Robert's Rules If you love Robert's Rules, you'll love General Conference. If you don't, you'll be like what is going on? It takes 20 minutes for someone to say no. But if you know Robert's Rules, it's a big game of chess in some ways. But yeah, that's how they run their business.

Speaker 2: 8:28

And in a body that big, it has to be that way, of course, sure, sure.

Speaker 3: 8:33

And there are multiple languages going on too. So there's Portuguese, french and Swahili are the official languages. There's also translations in Korean, in Spanish and etc. Etc. So there's about, I believe, those eight or 10 different languages being translated at the same time. So if a delegate came up and started speaking in French, everyone puts on their headphones as they hear the different translations. So that was a really interesting experience too.

Speaker 2: 9:01

Wow. Let's get into some of the specifics now. One of the things that I was hearing going into General Conference was something being referred to as the three R's. These were going to be three big things being dealt with at General Conference. Was that true? Was that your experience? Was that a thing?

Speaker 3: 9:22

Yes, so the three R's were to regionalize, to revise and to remove. So, speaking of regionalization, which is a big constitutional amendment, revising of the social principles and then, finally, talking about removing exclusionary language, especially language that excludes LGBTQ persons from ministry.

Speaker 2: 9:45

Okay, all right, so let's do each one real briefly. What are we talking about with regionalization?

Speaker 3: 9:52

So regionalization was a legislation that came out of the Philippines and from Africa, and this was one thing that is interesting about our polity is conferences outside of the United States are grouped in what's called central conferences and they have a certain degree of authority to modify the Book of Discipline, which is our book of doctrine, to apply to their particular context. But the US does not have that, and the reason being is the US was always the largest body and so everything was always US-centric to begin with. So, case in point, you know, one of the legislations that were passed was this new retiree benefits, called the Compass Plan, and we talked about three to four hours about this thing. But it has nothing to do with clergy outside of the United States. It's only for United States pastors and we're spending hours and hours and hours talking about it. Meanwhile half the room it doesn't apply to them at all.

Speaker 3: 10:59

So the General Conference and the United Methodist Church has always been very US-centric. Regionalization was going to say, hey, give the US its own region so that they can work on those kinds of details doctrine, administrative that are specific to the United States, and so our general conference can truly be global and really focus in on the larger picture, the vision, who we are as United Methodists across the globe. So I love what Bishop Tracy Malone said. She's the incoming president of the Council of Bishops and she said that this de-centers the United States. It also dismantles some systems of colonialism, is the way she put it, and it really allows us to be United Methodists across the globe and live into what it means to be a global church.

Speaker 3: 11:54

So this is a constitutional amendment which means it has to be passed with a two-thirds vote, not a simple majority from general conference, and then it has to go to all of the annual conferences and they have to vote on it and there has to be an aggregate two-third majority vote across all annual conferences. So even though it was passed and celebrated a general conference, it'll probably take about two years for all those votes to be collected and finally for it to be ratified. But there was a lot of excitement. The vote passed by 78%, which is far more than the two-third majority, and there was a lot of unity across the board. So we're very excited about that.

Speaker 2: 12:41

That's great, okay. So then the second one was removal.

Speaker 3: 12:47

Yeah, let's go into that. So if I look at my 2016 book of discipline that is sitting in my bookshelf right next to me, there are three different areas where the language homosexual or homosexuality appears. Okay, so the United Methodist Church was formed in 1968 when the UEB and the MEC joined.

Speaker 2: 13:14

The UEB for those who don't know is the United Evangelical Brethren Church.

Speaker 3: 13:20

Right, that's right. Yeah. And then the methodist uh church, yeah, so we merged in 68 eight that's right I was.

Speaker 2: 13:27

I remember that because I was like in third grade and I remember going out on our church lawn unveiling the new sign that had umc and that was all very big, but there you weren't born it was a little before my time In 1984, the General Conference of 1984, there was language added to ban the ordination of clergy who are quote, self-avowed practicing homosexuals and that has been there for decades.

Speaker 3: 14:00

That language has always been there and during this general conference that language was now removed. So on May 1st it was a consent calendar. That's where. So you know, I told you consent calendar, where a bunch of legislation just gets grouped together because they passed well in the legislative committees, right. So a lot of people didn't even know, not know, but like, maybe I think the people voting on it knew, but from the press room that I was in, I think some of the people in the communicators and the the press people didn't realize what was going on, cause it was just there was no debate and it was grouped in with 22 other pieces of legislation and it voted. It was approved by 93%. So that language was the first thingist Church over the past year.

Speaker 3: 15:19

Yeah, it was about 30. A little more than 30% of the United Methodist Church is disaffiliated between 2019 and 2023.

Speaker 2: 15:27

Okay, so that was approved the removal of that language.

Speaker 3: 15:34

Right, right, no-transcript, distinct and special. And so our more traditionalist brothers and sisters in ministry were concerned. By removing this language, are you now forcing me to hold a same-sex wedding? Are we going to be forced into that? And the answer is absolutely not. So the language in the legislation specifically I mean, this is already true already, but it specifically articulates that it's the pastor's discretion who they're going to marry. It's always been and it is and it will continue to be, and it is the trustees of the local church. It's their discretion what kind of events are held on their property, and so there is language that emphasizes that. That has been passed as well. So that's something to really I want to make sure it's communicated.

Speaker 2: 17:05

Yeah, no, that's very important.

Speaker 3: 17:06

And then the third R was the revising of the social principles, and these are not law but these are aspirations and these are sort of the stances that we as United Methodists take on social issues. So things like our understanding of the military, of peace, of different political issues, of what it means to be a family, what it means to, of what it means to be a family, what it means to be financially wise and generous, like these things are all in the social principles and there was a motion to revise it and update it. Leaders, pastors, church members across the globe, from Africa, philippines, europe, america, the United States that work together on updating and revising the social principles. Now the 1972 language about homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. It was not in the revised social principles that was submitted by our general boards, but with some discussion about marriage. There was some discussion about how do we define marriage as the United Methodist Church. After that the social principles passed and so now we also see the removal of this 1972 language as well, as the social principles were revised accordingly.

Speaker 2: 18:45

So that was a lot.

Speaker 3: 18:47

Yeah, a lot happened.

Speaker 2: 18:49

But that wasn't all that happened.

Speaker 3: 18:51

No, and a lot more, a lot more happened. Yeah, it was a very I don't want to say productive, but it was a very productive general conference. A lot happened, yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:03

Yeah, so what else would you highlight? What other things beyond the three R's were highlights for you, For me? The budget, I mean that was interesting that they Well say more.

Speaker 3: 19:21

So the budget was the general board budget was cut by 43%.

Speaker 2: 19:26

So yeah, how does that excite you? What was described, I think, is what the general church was acknowledging, is they want to push that savings down to local churches. Now, obviously, they had to cut their budgets because we've lost 30% of our churches, and so it's a recognition that there's going to be less money coming in just by virtue of that. But it sounded to me like they were also going beyond that and wanting to push savings down to the local churches. So we support the general church through our local churches. We all contribute. Everybody is challenged financially these days. That's true of families, that's true of individuals, it's true of churches and on up the board, on up the line. So that's what was exciting to me. I am a passionate believer in the local church being where the greatest impact happens, both within people who are in the church as well as the communities that are affected by a local church, and we certainly see that here at Hope. So any money that we can invest back into our local churches, I'm excited about.

Speaker 2: 20:57

So what else, what else did?

Speaker 3: 21:00

Well, one thing that resonated with me is seeing deacons have received sacramental authority. So in the United Methodist Church we have two different kinds of pastors. We have an elder. An elder is what you would typically think of as a pastor, one who oversees and orders the life of a local church. And a deacon is also a pastor, an ordained full member whose ministry is out in the world. They're bridging the local church and the world. So think of people like chaplains, professors, people who are in different fields, maybe in the secular realm, but they are ordained clergy, they're ordained pastors and, for the longest time, sacramental authority. So the authority to preside over Holy Communion was only given to elders and we always thought wait, but deacons are pastors too, and wouldn't it be powerful to extend the table of the bread and the juice to people out in the world? And this was up for debate for a long time and this year it finally passed that deacons can have full sacramental authority.

Speaker 3: 22:17

And for me, I have a very rich table theology. I love Holy Communion, I think it's. I love that are the two sacraments, the two holy things that we do as United Methodists are baptism and Holy Communion, aka taking a bath and eating, having a meal. So for me, like every time I eat a meal, it's a holy moment. You know, we all say grace before we eat. It's a moment to give thanks and to be reminded that God sustains us and God is with us, and that Jesus lives in and through us, and especially when we eat the holy meal. I think that's such a powerful reminder and I think that shouldn't be kept only within the walls of the church. I think that is the meal that should regularly be extended out into the world, and so I celebrate that meal that should regularly be extended out into the world, and so I celebrate that. I'm so happy that our deacon siblings now have sacramental authority.

Speaker 2: 23:13

Nice, well, said so, as we close out, as you came out of General Conference, as you look at the church right now, what has you hopeful? What has you?

Speaker 3: 23:25

hopeful. I was filled with hope seeing people from across the globe, speaking different languages, from different backgrounds, different contexts, working together and wrestling with what God is doing in and through the United Methodist Church, together and doing it well. That got me filled with hope.

Speaker 3: 23:51

That's great you know, during my time in the general conference, I had this like tingly feeling in my stomach and I was like when did I last feel this? And I was trying to think about it and I realized the last time I felt that tingling feeling was my first time back home. It was Thanksgiving break, after going to college, right. So I went to college. It feels like a completely new life. I've been apart from my family forever. And then I come back home for Thanksgiving break and you know, my, my parents are there, my, uh, there were some cousins that were there.

Speaker 3: 24:24

I've been seen in years, right, and, yeah, some people I know better than others, and yet we're all just one big family. We have different ideas, different politics, and yet we all love each other and we all are related and we know that we're connected because we have the same last name. We are one family and I felt that at the general conference that was in the room there were some awkward cousins, sure, but the United Methodist Church is one big family and it gives me a lot of hope knowing that, in a world where divisiveness is everywhere and people group based on their ideologies, to see a family exist in the midst of certain disagreements. In the midst of all that, saying no, we are one. We are one in Christ. That gives me hope.

Speaker 2: 25:22

That's beautiful, love that, and I may be the awkward cousin.

Speaker 1: 25:28

So I love that I get to be, at the table too.

Speaker 2: 25:31

Yeah, yeah, that's great, so listen. Thank you all for tuning in to this episode of the Meet Hope Podcast, and we look forward to being with you again next week.

Speaker 3: 25:52

Take care. Thank you for having me, Jeff Take care.

Speaker 1: 25:56

Thanks for being a part of the Hope community as we continue our conversations about faith and hope. If you don't already, please join us for worship on Sundays or on demand. You can learn more at meethopeorg or find us on socials at Meet Hope Church.