Most United Methodists didn’t know it, but The United Methodist Church changed radically Nov. 5 when the Council of Bishops announced that constitutional amendments restructuring the denomination, along with stronger principles for welcoming all people and overcoming racism, were ratified by clergy and laity around the world.
Jubilation broke out among church leaders after the vote tally was announced, with multiple expressions of celebration and sober acknowledgement that ratification is only a first step. As of Nov. 5, the UMC is now made up of eight regional conferences: Africa, Congo, West Africa, Central & Southern Europe, Germany, Northern Europe & Eurasia, Philippines, and the United States.
Turning the United States into a regional conference probably will involve either reorganizing or doing away with jurisdictions, the multi-state units that have defined the denomination since the 1939 merger of the Methodist Episcopal Church with the ME Church, South and the Methodist Protestant Church. Together with the racially segregated Central Jurisdiction, such units were intended to preserve some of the previous denomination’s autonomy such as property ownership. However, the jurisdictions were simply a way to perpetuate the racism that had dogged American Methodism since its inception. In the late 20th century, the jurisdictions also served as power centers, especially regarding preserving the UMC’s LGBTQ+ bans. The Council of Bishops is tasked with creating a committee to figure out how to reorganize the U.S. church; there’s a lot to unpack, so let’s pray often for committee members and their work.
Changing the structure doesn’t change hearts and minds though, and savvy church leaders are acknowledging the reality even when they couch it in typically hopeful, Methodist-nice terms. Regionalization has changed the UMC overnight from a colonial-style denomination, where international units were appendages of the U.S. church, into a global network with officially co-equal partners having authority to set up their operational rules according to national and cultural contexts. This means that the U.S. church no longer has the power to decide worldwide United Methodist identity. Bishops and denominational leaders, aided by “talking points” resources from United Methodist Communications, are now in full-court press to educate annual conferences and local churches about how the new connectionalism is supposed to work. Will regionalization foster unity or increase the fragmentation begun by disaffiliations? Only the journey will tell, and no one knows where the path will lead.
~From United Methodist Insight, 11/7/25
