Articles about developments of alternatives for the future of The United Methodist Church: discussions of options, other expressions of the Methodist or Wesleyan Way, new alignments, petitions and resolutions approved in annual conferences, etc.
Bishop Stanovsky Announces Greater Northwest Area Guiding Coalition
Greater Northwest Area Press Release
In the wake of the exclusionary and punitive actions of General Conference 2019, Bishop Elaine JW Stanovsky is announcing the formation of a Greater Northwest Area Guiding Coalition. The coalition will help to shape and lead a new movement of Methodism in the Northwest that fully includes LGBTQIA+persons in membership, participation and leadership, both lay and ordained.
In conversations with people inside and outside our churches, listening deeply to voices on the margins, the group will develop proposals for United Methodists across the Greater Northwest to move into a future of vital, inclusive, innovative, multiplying, engaged Christian ministry in the Wesleyan Tradition.
News Analysis
By Kathy L. Gilbert
Oct. 1, 2019 | UM News
Will the 2020 United Methodist General Conference bring everyone back to the table or will delegates go off in their own corners to divide the church?
At issue is the denomination’s now 47-year-long debate about the role of LGBTQ people in church leadership.
Lessons from the Leadership Institute's "Futuring" Session
by Cynthia B. Astle (used with permission of UM-Insight)
October 3, 2019
Attending this year’s Leadership Institute sponsored by United Methodist Church of the Resurrection proved to be an unusual, if not unique, event. Days after an information cascade washed over participants, I’ve finally been able to process much of the event.
The venue itself staggered perception. Built from seven “wings” as its founder the Rev. Adam Hamilton put it, Church of the Resurrection’s edifice rises out of the Leawood, Kansas, landscape like the flames of a wildfire roaring over the prairie. The building can be seen from miles away. I can’t recall encountering a structure so imposing, not even the famed architecture of the Vatican, which I visited in 1997 with the World Methodist Council executive committee.
Only the presence of dozens of volunteers put a human scale to the monumental environment. As might be expected, given the culture established by its founding senior pastor Rev. Hamilton, COR’s staff and volunteers excel at radical hospitality.
The venue was the perfect setting for the 2019 Leadership Institute’s content, which centered on what the ad hoc group UMC Next now calls its “Next Generation UMC” plan. Sad to say, for me the proposal and its venue seemed to symbolize everything The United Methodist Church has become: overwhelmingly complex, accommodating different interests yet cemented in an immovable institution amid a cultural era that calls for adaptability and nimbleness.
by David W. Scott (from UM-Insight)
September 30, 2019
As I explained in a post last week, the UMC is currently locked in a three-way standoff among US centrists and progressives, US traditionalists, and Africans, in which none of the parties is able to achieve their goals in the church, but none of the parties is willing to walk away. Since a standoff is a deadlocked state, it is not clear how this conflict will be resolved at GC2020 or beyond.
There are perhaps four possibilities for how this conflict will develop:
1. The situation isn’t resolved. The conflict and the deadlock continue, at least for the near-term future. Perhaps in another 4-8 years, the situation will have changed such that the situation will be resolved, but until then, the conflict will simply continue, likely escalating in the meantime.
In many ways, because of the deadlocked nature of a three-way standoff, this is actually the most likely scenario. A standoff will only be resolved if the goals of one party significantly changes, if one party is able to gain a tactical advantage, or if something disrupts the system from outside. In all other scenarios, the standoff simply continues.
Of course, there are costs to continuing the standoff: both US parties lose members and financial support in greater numbers because of the conflict, and the conflict guts the boards and agencies, which Africans would like to preserve. [Read the rest of the possibilities!]
- Leadership Gathering Holds Conversations on UMC Future
- COR Leadership Institute Focuses on Future of UMC
- 'Reform & Renewal' Forces Acknowledge 20 Percent Delegate Drop
- Black Leaders Meet to Discuss Future of United Methodist Church
- The Current Three-Way Standoff in the UMC
- The winding road ahead for United Methodism
- The Bursting of the Methodist Wineskin
- Reflections on Where We Are
- Western Jurisdiction Holds "Fresh United Methodism Summit"
- African Pastor Calls For Honesty in Global Methodism
- Two Traditionalist Arguments that Fall Flat
- Global? Who You Calling 'Global'?
- Papers, Discussions, Research: UM-Insight.org
- Parody Humor; Venn Diagram; First African Reconciling Congregation
- GC2020: Pick Up a Pen, Start Writing
- The struggle for the perfect plan
- State of the UMC: Bloggers weigh in
- The US & the Central Conferences at the UM Scholars Conference
- Speech: Four Words, Three Rules, Two Standards, One Grace
- Commission on General Conference added to confusion
- Bishop Richard Wilke: A plea to the United Methodist Church
- Diverse group of United Methodists explores separation
- Plans canceled for GC2024 in Philippines
- Connectional Table Approves Legislation Creating New U.S. Structure
- Mainstream UMC Survey Results Show Urgency
- Scholars gather to champion LGBTQ inclusion
- Petition Process Open for 2020 General Conference
- Judicial Council Docket - October, 2019
- Church leaders look at options for future of denomination
- Apportionment collection rates down after GC2019
- Conferences Mull Denomination's Future
- What does it mean to Dissolve The United Methodist Church?
- Where The Money (Doesn't) Come From
- Bishops Release Rulings of Law on Ordinations, Finances
- Two Bishops Offer Plan for UMC Future
- Arbitration: A Possible Help in the Coming Separation
- UMC Bishops pose five questions to Judicial Council on Traditional Plan
- A Letter to Centrists
- General Conference is Broken; Annual Conferences Are Not
- US elections see shift in GC2020 delegates
- 76% of US Annual Conferences Reject Traditional Plan
- How To Restructure The UMC
- "Where Do We Go From Here?"
- June 20 Marks Four Significant Elections
- Inclusive Methodists secure Jurisdictional Conference majorities
- Recommended candidates offer open letter to leaders and colleagues
- A Texas-Size Wakeup Call for WCA
- "Know When To Hold 'Em, Know When to Fold 'Em..."