What is the minimum agenda for a United Methodist General Conference?

Can a regular session of a United Methodist General Conference complete its work in just eight days?

Let's consider what a General Conference must do, by Discipline.

After it has established its rules of procedure, the two principal required activities of a regular session of a United Methodist General Conference are elections and legislation processing.

The General Conference is responsible for electing the General Conference Secretary-Designate, all members of the General Conference Commission, and at least some members of the Judicial Council, the Standing Committee on Regional Conference Matters outside the U.S., the University Senate, the board of trustees of John Street United Methodist Church in New York, and those nominated by the Council of Bishops to serve on the boards of the general agencies. Elections are typically spread across the plenary sessions of the General Conference but could be held within a single plenary session on a single day. To save the most plenary time for legislation processing, this could be earlier in the General Conference before the legislative committees have completed their work.

The processing of legislation comprises the bulk of the work of a General Conference. A typical General Conference receives over 1000 legislative items submitted by individuals, annual conferences, general agencies, and other bodies of the Church. These include proposed changes to the Book of Discipline and the Book of Resolutions as well as items such as the budget and policy matters not included there. Legislation received by a General Conference ahead of time is assigned to a legislative committee for consideration and a vote on whether to accept it, reject it, refer it, or amend it in some way. The General Conference votes on all items that have been acted upon by the legislative committee plus other items that may be brought to the floor by other individuals or bodies. 

There are two ways to streamline the processing of legislation. If an item of legislation acted upon by a legislative committee has no financial implications, seeks no change in the constitution, and receives fewer than 10 votes against it in committee, it goes on a “consent calendar.” Consent calendar items are voted on as a bundle without further debate to conserve floor time in the plenary session. The same is true with motions to refer, though these go onto a different list of items to make clear the intention is to refer rather than approve them. A legislative committee can also vote down legislation, individually or in bulk. Items voted down in committee do not go to the plenary unless they contain a minority report and the plenary acts to revive them by substituting the minority report for the majority report.  

What is new for 2028, as approved by the 2024 General Conference, is a legislative committee called the United States Regional Committee. Over time, somewhere between  30% and 50% of General Conference legislation distributed among the already established legislative committees has historically related to the United States only. For the 2028 General Conference, much of that legislation could go instead to the United States Regional Committee, which will meet during the first three full days of the General Conference (May 9-11). Additionally, the Committee on Reference, which assigns legislation to legislative committees and meets prior to the General Conference may choose to refer some U.S.-specific items directly to the U.S. regional conference, which will likely meet in 2029. This means when the other established legislative committees begin to meet, they will have smaller agendas, reducing in some cases substantially the time they will need to complete their work. The most recently developed schedule indicates they will meet over two full days instead of three or four.

In addition to the required elections and legislation processing, the plenary sessions of the General Conference include worship (usually 45 minutes each day) plus a number of emphasis moments, addresses, and reports. Included among these are a recognition of ecumenical guests and leaders of other Methodist denominations, a commissioning service for missionaries, a consecration service for deaconesses and home missioners, a memorial service for bishops and spouses who have died in the previous year (usually incorporated into the daily worship), addresses from a youth, a young adult, a layperson, and the president of the council of bishops, and reports from general agencies. None of these is required by the Discipline, and time for some of them could be reduced. 

Thus, eight days should be a reasonable amount of time for the 2028 General Conference to complete its work without omitting anything normally done at previous General Conferences. As the denomination adjusts to its new regionalized polity under the overhauled General Book of Discipline, expected to be adopted by the 2028 General Conference, the number of days needed for the General Conference to complete its required work could be reduced even further. 

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Burton Edwards serves as Lead for Ask The UMC, the information service of United Methodist Communications.