In this op-ed, Rev. Elizabeth Hurd believes the proposed constitutional amendment package on regionalization (Ballot #1) allows us to be proactive about our future and recommends eligible voting members to vote yes.
REV. ELIZABETH HURD
West Bloomfield UMC
Much was said leading up to the 2020/2024 General Conference about regionalization, especially how it helps us be a truly global church. Click here to review the great series produced by Ask The UMC.
We’ve heard how regionalization decolonizes The United Methodist Church, allowing for cultural contextualization of the Book of Discipline and decentering American issues like pensions at general conference. With regionalization, regional conferences will be able to address issues specific to their culture, create their own resources for worship, and be the church their part of the world needs. Cultural issues being addressed at a regional level means general conference could empower worldwide witness for Christ instead of being bogged down by American problems.
Decolonization and contextualization are very important reasons to vote in favor of regionalization. The ability to contextualize polity to meet cultural needs is one reason I will vote in favor of regionalization at the 2025 Michigan Annual Conference. Eligible lay members and full-member clergy of the Michigan Annual Conference will vote on four amendments to The United Methodist Church’s constitution as part of the ratification process.
However, I would like to take this time to share another reason I’m voting yes for regionalization, one that has not been as thoroughly talked about.
Regionalization is the right choice for the future United Methodist Church, particularly the future United Methodist Church in America.
It is no secret that the American church is in decline. We talk about it at almost every church gathering. We bemoan dwindling religious affiliation. We wring our hands over financial scarcity. We read about how clergy are aging and retiring, and how there are fewer and fewer young clergy to replace them.
We know our reality.
One of my biggest qualms with The United Methodist Church is that we seem desperate to be the church we were 30 years ago rather than laying the groundwork for the church 30 years from now. We’d rather try to get back to what we were and preserve that church than creatively think about who we need to be for the future.
To be honest, I don’t care to go back to the church of 30 years ago. I was not a pastor 30 years ago. I was 2 years old. But I will be a pastor 30 years from now, and because of this, I often think about the long-term future of the church.
Is a proposed change actually good for the church 30 years from now? Or is it simply a short-term solution? Is it going to strengthen the future church? Or is it going to get in its way?
Regionalization is good for the church 30 years from now.
This is going to require us to get into the weeds of structure for a second. So, bear with me.
Under the proposed amendments, the current central conferences in Africa, Europe, and the Philippines and the United States would become regional conferences. In the United States, in addition to 51 annual conferences, five jurisdictional conferences, and a general conference, we would add a regional conference into the mix.
That’s a lot.
How is this good for the church of the future? Isn’t that just more money going toward another conference? Isn’t that more bureaucracy in an already bureaucracy-heavy church?
Short term, yes. Long term, no.
Currently, our 51 American annual conferences are served by 32 bishops, reduced from 39 by action of the 2020/2024 General Conference. This means there are bishops in the United States serving multiple annual conferences. Our own bishop is one of them. Disaffiliation, closing churches, and religious decline all play into this reduction. Let’s be real; this decline will likely not reverse itself.
So, in the short term, we will have a little more bureaucracy to deal with. Our delegates to general conference will have one more conference to put on their schedule. Our bishops will have one more conference they will oversee. Church polity nerds will have one more livestream to tune in to. But I don’t think this will last forever.
I believe, in the long term, we are going to need to dissolve the jurisdictional conferences, reduce the number of annual conferences and bishops, and give the regional conference the power to elect bishops (a role I believe is necessary). Sure, in such a future, annual conferences would cover more geography. There may come a day when we in Michigan are asked to travel to Illinois, Indiana, or Ohio for an annual conference session. But reduction is where we are headed, and that is okay. This is our reality, whether regionalization passes or not. We have a choice to make about how this reality comes to be.
We can choose the harder path. We can vote against ratifying regionalization and keep the same structure we’ve always had. We can hope and pray that we magically become the church of the 1980s and 1990s again. But this choice will lead us toward having to make panicked decisions in crisis mode, though such a way has never served us well and only weakens our connection and our witness for Christ.
Or we can set ourselves up to do this hard work well. We can choose regionalization, now. We can add a little extra bureaucracy for the short term so that we can build for the long term. Over time, we can work with care, discernment, prayer, and intention to usher in a new structure step by step. We can choose a new way of being The United Methodist Church, both in America and across the world.
We cannot be good witnesses for Christ if our institution always operates in crisis mode. And to be frank, we’ve been operating in crisis mode for a while. Regionalization offers us something different. It offers us the chance to be proactive about our future. If we choose proactivity, it will only strengthen our connection and our witness for Christ in a world that desperately needs him.
It’s our choice.
We can choose to look back and wish we were the church of 30 years ago. Or we can choose to look ahead and prayerfully build the church of 30 years from now.
I know which one I’m choosing. I hope that you choose to look ahead, too.
Last Updated on April 22, 2025