Overview of Plans (August, 2019)

Cynthia Astle of UM-Insight provides this overview of the plans for the future of The United Methodist Church that have become public as of 8/19/2019:

Abundance of Future Plans Share Variations on a Theme

by Cynthia B. Astle
August 17, 2019 (used by permission of UM-Insight)

UPDATED 8-19-2019

Call it “Variations on a Theme.” A scramble to shape “new Methodism” or “next Methodism” or “just get us out of this mess” Methodism ramped up in late summer as ad hoc groups rolled out their versions of what could resolve The United Methodist Church’s impasse over the acceptance of LGBTQ+ persons in the global denomination.

Vocal and visible resistance to the punitive legalism of the Traditional Plan adopted at the special called 2019 General Conference has sparked a flood of alternatives. The result is a welter of proposals being discussed by formal and informal groups of United Methodists feeling the pressure of a Sept. 15 deadline to submit the plans and their enabling legislation to the 2020 General Conference.

As of Aug. 17, here are the options being promoted by various factions in the church:

The Bard-Jones Plan. Named for its architects, Bishop David A. Bard of Michigan Area and Bishop Scott J. Jones of Houston Area, this proposal strong resembles the Connectional Conferences model that came out of the Commission on A Way Forward. Through this, the UMC would be divided into theologically aligned units that shared church-wide agencies such as the General Council on Finance and Administration. Read the plan here.

The Indianapolis Plan. Crafted by an ad hoc group of church leaders, this plan proposes to split the UMC into two denominations, a traditionalist version and a centrist-progressive version, again sharing certain church-wide boards and agencies. Announced Aug. 9, the plan would require that annual conferences and local congregations vote on where to align themselves, a method that has already drawn sharp criticism as being insensitive to the diversity within those units. Its proponents contend this division could be accomplished without the difficult and time-consuming need to amend the UMC constitution. Read the plan here.

Over the weekend, an early critic of the plan, the Rev. Jeremy Smith, and a group participant, the Rev. Darren Cushman Wood, conferred by telephone about the group's make-up and the plan's composition. Read Rev. Cushman Wood's account of that discussion here. 

The UMC Next Plan. This plan, announced Aug. 16 in the wake of the Indianapolis Plan, claims to be the most inclusive option, both in terms of its development by multiple groups in the church and in its effort to stop immediately the ongoing harm caused by the adoption of the Traditional Plan by the special called 2019 General Conference. The UMC Next plan distinctively proposes that the denomination engage a professional mediator to help with the departure of local congregations and with the allocation of church-wide resources with any new, viable Wesleyan denominations that arise from the UMC. Download the UMC Next proposal.

Among UMC Next’s key proposals:

• Stop charges, investigations, and trials. An immediate moratorium on charges against LGBTQ clergy, clergy performing same-sex weddings, or other charges stemming from the provisions of the Traditional Plan.
• Remove the terms of the General Conference 2019 Traditional Plan and other incompatibility references from The Book of Discipline.

Two wild cards could affect these proposals.

First, a statement from the Our Movement Forward consultation in May was developed by an open gathering of LGBTQ+ persons and their allies. The aspirations expressed by this group describe the values they wish to see in a new expression of Methodism without prescribing a parliamentary method for achieving a structure that enacts those values. Read the Our Movement Forward proclamation here.

Second, Bishop John Yambasu of Sierra Leone called together in July a group of church leaders that included many people who have crafted the UMC Next Plan along the leaders of conservative groups that form the Reform and Renewal Coalition. The Yambasu gathering said it would offer alternatives that included leadership from the Central Conferences deemed absent from the other, USA-centric variations. Read an article about the gathering.