by UMJeremy, of HackingChristianity.net
Petitions In. Now What?
Another milestone has passed for The United Methodist Church. Petitions to change the Book of Discipline, our book of doctrine and polity, were due September 18th. Done and done!
That means that the most legitimate, well-crafted ideas will be in the pre-published ADCA come February for consideration by the May 2020 General Conference in Minneapolis. These petitions will be translated and interpreted in the four UMC languages, and so these petitions will have the most weight when it comes to discernment.
So. Now what?
Trickle of Plans and Proposals
These petitions are not public yet except by self-disclosure by the submitters. Over the coming months, revelations of what petitions were submitted will start trickling out. Some we know about (see this helpful roundup by Rev. Becca Girrell in the New England annual conference), and some are yet to be revealed.
I was part of a team that will not be revealing our work until later this Fall because the messaging around these complex legislative ideas needs to be finalized. If we are doing it, then we know other groups are too.
These are all unofficial groups or individuals doing the promotion and discussion: unlike 2019, there is no standard plan (or plans…sigh) proposed by the UMC powers-that-be. The closest one is the Connectional Table’s proposal to fix the inequality in the system (see here) by creating a Regional Conference in The USA. While helpful, its timeline is too slow for effective rallying of a majority vote (unless the legislation changed from what I saw), but support of it has been rolled into other plans such as UMC Next. ... [Continue reading this overview of where we are--and where we could be...]