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Ask The UMC series: The United Methodist Church really is ...

Analysis by The Rev. Taylor W Burton Edwards

Ask The UMC series provides insight into legislation that went into effect immediately after the 2024 General Conference and major changes that will go into effect beginning in January, 2025. Graphic by Laurens Glass, United Methodist Communications.
Ask The UMC series provides insight into legislation that went into effect immediately after the 2024 General Conference and major changes that will go into effect beginning in January, 2025. Graphic by Laurens Glass, United Methodist Communications.

The United Methodist Church is forging a new identity beginning with actions taken at the 2020/2024 General Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina (April 23-May 3, 2024). This series explores in some detail what elements of this new identity.

Parts 1-3 address what came into effect by the close of the Annual Conference session.

Part 4-6 address the Revised Social Principles, the deletion of disaffiliation legislation, and the mandate to create processes for reaffiliation, which took effect on January 1, 2025.

Part 7 (coming Fall 2025) will address the process of regionalization, assuming the 28 constitutional amendments required to do so are ratified, and the work on the Global Book of Discipline that still lies ahead.

Part 1: Decentering the United States: The United States Regional Committee 

By passing legislation immediately creating a United States Regional Committee, the 2024 General Conference has already taken a significant step to de-center the United States in the ongoing work of the General Conference.
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Part 2: Ending some chargeable offenses 

The 2024 General Conference removed the description of one chargeable offense against clergy and removed a second chargeable offense against clergy entirely.
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Part 3: Reinstating some clergy 

The 2024 General Conference made provisions for clergy who had been removed or forced out because of their sexual identity or because they presided at a same-sex marriage or union ceremony to be reinstated. Learn about how this happened, how it works  and the three clergy reinstated by annual conferences in 2024.
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Part 4: Speaking to the world with (closer to) one voice 

The 2024 General Conference adopted a thoroughly revised set of Social Principles, the result of listening and feedback across the whole of the church worldwide over a period of more than a decade. Learn more about why this was necessary. how the process unfolded, and how the Revised Social Principles better reflect the voices of the whole of the denomination, helping it address the world with closer to one voice.
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Part 5: Ending disaffiliation (Updated November 2024)

The 2024 General Conference received nearly 30 petitions to request that the disaffiliation provisions of the expired Paragraph 2553 be extended in some way. Instead, it deleted the paragraph. How did this happen, and what will happen now that disaffiliation is no longer an option?
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Part 6: Opening the door to reaffiliation

The 2024 General Conference has required annual conferences impacted by disaffiliation to develop their own policies to readmit those congregations that wish to reaffiliate. Two annual conferences have completed this task. Others are in process.
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This content was produced by Ask The UMC, a ministry of United Methodist Communications.

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