by Steve | Mar 15, 2024 | In the News, Perspective / News
African Delegates’ Urgent Requests Unanswered
By Thomas Lambrecht
We are less than six weeks from the opening session of the 2024 United Methodist General Conference. That is why it is troubling that African delegates continue to be beset with delayed responses from the staff running our UM General Conference and are experiencing problems that threaten their ability to participate.
For the last several months, the delay in sending non-U.S. delegates their official letters of invitation to attend the General Conference has been noted and criticized, including by Mainstream UMC, the self-identified “centrist” caucus. Receiving the invitation letter is required before the delegate can have an interview at the U.S. embassy to obtain a visa to attend the Conference.
In recent correspondence, the Rev. Dr. Jerry Kulah, a long-time Liberian General Conference delegate, identified a number of remaining problems facing African delegates.
Invitation Letters
It appears by now that almost all African delegates have received their invitation letters. The letters came so late, however, that a few delegates could not even schedule a visa interview at the embassy. Others have had to travel to a different country’s embassy, where there were still interview openings, in order to apply for a visa. This entails paying for air fare, hotel, and food for the trip, including a stay of two to seven days to allow processing of the visa and picking it up at the embassy before returning to one’s home country.
The General Conference is supposed to pay for this cost to obtain a visa. The delay in sending invitation letters means that more delegates have needed to travel to obtain a visa, which means that the cost to the general church is higher. In some cases, the funds are not being sent in a timely fashion, jeopardizing the ability of the delegates to travel for their visa interview. Most African delegates cannot just put the expenses on a credit card and wait three weeks to be reimbursed.
A new problem is that, in some places, embassy staff are becoming stricter in awarding visas. Even some who have traveled to the U.S. before are being denied this time. In Liberia, two of eight clergy delegates have been denied, while three of five lay delegates have been denied. (Others are still awaiting a scheduled interview.) In the past, UM leaders have contacted U.S. embassies to let them know delegates would be coming for interviews and to request their assistance in granting visas. It appears that did not happen this time around.
Because of the denial of visas (some of which happen every quadrennium), alternates need to be prepared to step in to fill out the delegation. However, alternates also need letters of invitation to get their visas. Alternates are now having trouble receiving their letters in a timely fashion. And because of how late the original delegates received their letters, there is now not enough time for some alternates to schedule a visa interview. In some places the wait time for scheduling a visa interview is three to six months, well past the dates of General Conference.
The end result is that Africa will not be fully represented at the 2024 General Conference. At the 2019 General Conference in St. Louis, more than ten percent of the African delegates did not receive visas to attend and were not able to have their slots filled by alternates. It looks like that number may be higher this time. All of this could have been avoided by having invitation letters sent out last fall, instead of waiting until the last minute. This has been a perennial problem with how General Conference organizers have handled the visa situation, but it appears much worse this time.
Travel Plans
For past General Conferences, the general church has sent funds to the annual conferences in Africa to enable delegates to purchase their own air ticket. This allowed delegates to come on their own schedule. Many wanted to arrive several days early, in order to allow their bodies time to adjust to the 6-9 hours of time difference between the U.S. and Africa. Some would come early or stay past the conference in order to visit partner churches in the U.S. and cultivate ties for ministry, as well as visit family members. Coming early or staying later did not cost the general church any money, as the extra days were at the delegate’s own expense, and the air fare would be the same.
This time, in an admirable effort to save cost, the General Conference Commission is requiring all non-U.S. delegates to have their tickets purchased by a travel agency. This would be fine if the travel agency could accommodate the individualized schedules of delegates. Unfortunately, the Commission has decided to restrict travel dates for delegates, so that they arrive in Charlotte the day before delegate orientation begins and leave the day after adjournment. If delegates want to come earlier or stay beyond those dates, they will have to pay for the whole air fare themselves, which most African delegates cannot afford.
Some question the motivation behind these restrictions on travel. It could be that organizers want to avoid complicating the travel agency’s job by allowing individual itineraries. It is also a fact that many UM leaders have been displeased that the Africa Initiative in the past has organized a pre-conference gathering for African and other non-U.S. delegates to learn about the issues and discuss strategy for the General Conference. Restricting travel has meant that such a gathering could not take place this time. That will unquestionably hamper the ability of African delegates to have a unified and strategic impact on decisions at General Conference.
Remarkably, as of this writing, our information is that no African delegates have yet received their air tickets. Because the travel agency is now so late in making flight arrangements for the African delegates, the cost will undoubtedly be higher, and the itineraries available may be less desirable. Under the best of circumstances, travel to and from Africa takes 18 to 30 hours. If certain flights are sold out, that may add to the travel time and mean long layovers without any accommodation in airports. This creates hardship for the delegates and puts them at a physical disadvantage dealing with jet lag, travel exhaustion, and the stress of being in a different country, perhaps for the first time. They will be less prepared to fully participate as equals in the business of the General Conference.
This is fundamentally unjust, and African delegates are being treated differently from U.S. delegates. U.S. delegates can travel to Charlotte whenever they want and stay as long as they want on their own dime, but African delegates are only allowed to travel on certain restricted dates. This unequal treatment sends a message to African delegates that they are second-class members of The United Methodist Church, belying the aspiration that we are a truly global and inclusive church.
(Author’s correction: After publishing this piece, I was informed by a U.S. delegate that they are also expected to travel on those certain limited dates and use the official travel agency for travel arrangements. He said that there appeared to be a way to change to different dates of travel, but it was difficult to access and figure out. African delegates with little knowledge or experience in maneuvering complex online forms would find this option inaccessible.)
Other Issues
Other requests from Dr. Kulah have gone without a response from General Conference staff. Africa Initiative has requested space to hold an African worship service on the Sunday of General Conference, as they have in previous quadrennia.
New this year is the fact that delegates will be fed prepared meals at the convention center to save time and avoid the need for the conference to pay each delegate a per diem to cover meals. Kulah raises the concern that the meals prepared may not take African dietary desires into account, and that African delegates might prefer to seek out meals more in line with their health needs. He requested a return to the per diem approach.
The Mainstream UMC blog linked above also lamented the fact that many delegates did not have working ID numbers that would enable their free access to the General Conference website to learn more about the details of the conference and view proposed legislation. This is still true of many delegates in Africa. Without this access to legislation ahead of time in their preferred language, delegates will be less prepared.
There is no contact list or even a list of names of delegates available. No hotel information has been shared with African delegates. There is no map of the convention center indicating room assignments. There is no map of downtown Charlotte indicating the hotels that will be housing General Conference participants. All this information would normally be public four months before the General Conference. Emails to the General Conference secretary and staff are not being responded to in a timely way (or even at all, in some cases).
Preparing the logistics for a General Conference is a challenging task. However, organizers have had over two years to plan this conference since its last postponement from 2022. Furthermore, they have done this before. They are not newbies. It is difficult to fathom how so many issues have fallen through the cracks. The lack of communication and lack of transparency, as well as the failure to assure the basics of universal delegate participation, have damaged the credibility of organizers and threaten the very legitimacy of this General Conference. It leaves the door open for some to attribute nefarious motives for these shortcomings. At the very least, it inspires “no confidence” in the leadership being provided.
It is uncertain where things will go from here. We pray that what can be straightened out will be, and that God’s Spirit will move in spite of the obstacles to a smoothly run conference.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and vice president of Good News. Photo: Shutterstock.
by Steve | Mar 13, 2024 | March/April 2024
He Wants You Back
By BJ Funk
My oldest son texted words that hit like a large brick thrown at my stomach. He wrote, “My birth mother passed.”
I wasn’t prepared for this. I remember that joyous moment when the lady with the adoption agency placed this baby in my arms. She said, “His birth mother had only one request; that he be put in a Christian home.”
Grace looked inside my heart that day and whispered, “This child is yours.” He was beautiful and perfect. He was perfectly beautiful. He still is. It was instant love for me. My gratitude to her gained a permanent place in my heart. Though I didn’t know her, I knew her. And, whatever her reasons, she gifted me with her child. I don’t know how she did it.
I prayed for her. I cried for her. And from the minute he was placed in my arms, it was as if there were two mothers rearing this precious boy. At first, I thought of her every day. I thought of her at milestones in his life and wished I could have let her know. I prayed for her at every birthday, joyous that he was mine but wishing he could somehow also be hers.
The adoption lady called when he was not quite a year. His birth mother married, and wanted to see if she could get him back. The law said that wasn’t possible. Just the thought of something like that happening made me weak. However, I was so grateful that I had something to tell my son when he was old enough to understand. She wanted him back. One day that would ring in his ears and gratitude would touch his soul. She wanted him back.
I can’t imagine how she dealt with that. So, I prayed for her. I cried for her. And my gratitude grew even larger.
I loved being a mother. She gave up so that I could have. And now she was gone.
Eventually, my son wanted to meet her. I knew it was risky. What if she turned him down? I did not want him to be hurt. He and I went to the courthouse files to find her name. Then, I contacted an adoption agency in our state. That led to our having a phone number to call her. It was exciting and frightening at the same time. I was comforted, however, in that, after her marriage, she wanted him back. Knowing that gave me a spotlight into her soul, and I believed her soul was good.
Our first conversation was positive. Later, my son and his wife flew out to meet them. You know how we say that God took care of something beyond our expectation? Well, he did it again.
She and her family embraced them both. and thus began a tradition. Now they fly to be with his family every Christmas. The man his birth mother married calls him “son.” He is included in their family reunions and in their Christmas letter to friends. Amazingly, I also get one of those letters. I met her once. Like her son, she was beautiful. My constant gratitude for how God worked all of this out humbles me.
Is there a Jesus story here? I’m glad you asked.
Long after sin snatched away our innocence in the Garden of Eden, crushing us with evil’s grasp, Jesus knelt before his Father and heard, “Son, it’s time for our plan. I want my children back.”
Jesus was nailed to the cross. He bled and died. He conquered the power of sin over us. He took back what belonged to Him when He said on the cross, “It is finished.”
He took you back. Sin will always be crouching at your door, but it does not have power over you. Why? Because God took you back. You are free from sin’s control.
That should stir up a large hallelujah somewhere deep inside your soul.
B.J. Funk is Good News’ long-time devotional columnist and author of It’s A Good Day for Grace, available on Amazon.
by Steve | Mar 13, 2024 | March/April 2023
TMS Global Celebrates 40 Years
By Jenifer Jones
In November 1983, the Christian missions organization began when 34 United Methodist pastors and mission-minded individuals gathered in St. Louis. They had watched the decline in the number of United Methodist missionaries over the years. Their hearts’ cry was to see more cross-cultural workers sent who would proclaim the message and love of Christ even to the least-reached places of the world. After much prayer, they committed to start a new global missions agency. What would be named The Mission Society for United Methodists was officially incorporated on January 6th, 1984.
The 40th anniversary celebration year kicked off at a January 5-7 event in Atlanta. About 230 guests and staff and 46 children attended the busiest day of the event.
“It was clear to everyone that God has been with TMS Global for the entire 40 years,” said the Rev. Max Wilkins, TMS Global President. “He has been working in and through us in power, protection, provision, and perhaps most of all, in presence. There was a sense that God was the one being praised and glorified in this celebration.”
Special guests included the adult children of the founding president and his wife, the late H.T. and Alice Maclin. Also in attendance were two of TMS Global’s former presidents, the Revs. Al Vom Steeg and Dick McClain.
McClain said it was a blessing to see 40 years of God’s faithfulness unfold during the event. “As you actually live it out,” he said, “you see little moments of God doing something remarkable, but that is just one moment. When you look at the scope of 40 years of faithfulness, boy, what a blessing that is.”
For Vom Steeg, the constant equipping of workers by TMS Global stands out. “It’s not train them once. It’s a continued nature of renewal,” he says.
Kids attended their own special programming during the 40th anniversary event. “Our goals were to have fun, create community, and help the children see ways they can be part of God’s big story of reaching the world,” said Kerry Davidson, coordinator of TCK (third-culture kid) care at TMS Global.
Participants in the children’s program heard from TCKs around the world, ate snacks from those places, and prayed for the TCKs they met. “We thought it was important to offer a children’s program because children are important to TMS Global,” Davidson said. “Having whole families participate together in celebrating the 40th anniversary creates deeper community and gives a shared language and vision for partnering with Jesus in His mission.”
As TMS Global moves into its next decade of ministry, President-elect Dr. Jim Ramsay is looking toward global partnerships. He said, “I am hopeful that the depth and breadth of our international partnerships will grow so that we can play an important role in helping local churches in the United States connect in effective and healthy ways with the global church for the sake of the mission of God.”
Jenifer Jones is a communicator for TMS Global (tms-global.org).
About TMS Global: TMS Global originally launched as The Mission Society for United Methodists. Now interdenominational (and subsequently renamed), TMS Global sends people around the world to spread the love and message of Jesus. Since 1984, it has trained, mobilized, and served hundreds of cross-cultural witnesses. Currently, 143 serve in 29 countries around the world. Thousands of people have been introduced to Jesus and discipled in their faith. Churches in the US and abroad have embraced God’s plan for their congregations and reached out to their communities, nation, and the world with the hope of Christ.
by Steve | Mar 13, 2024 | March/April 2024
GMC Convening Event to be held in Costa Rica
By Walter Felton (Global Methodist Church)
“Prayer teams and networks all around the Global Methodist Church are daily calling on the Lord for His empowerment and presence at the church’s convening General Conference,” said the Rev. Laura Ballinger, chairwoman of the denomination’s Prayer Steering Committee. “We firmly believe Jesus spoke the truth when he said, ‘apart from me you can do nothing.’”
Ballinger, a pastor in Indiana, is also co-leader of the Prayer Committee of the Transitional Commission on the Convening General Conference. She is just one of many people preparing for the Global Methodist Church’s initial gathering in San Jose, Costa Rica, September 20-26, 2024. Organizers, who have already completed a number of tasks on a long checklist, said prayer is essential and foundational to their work and they joyfully receive every intercession made on their behalf.
Even though the GM Church already has 4,407 local churches and over two dozen provisional annual conferences and districts around the world, it is still a denomination very much in transition. Church leaders believe there are thousands of local United Methodist congregations in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas hoping to join it before its convening General Conference. How to integrate these local churches and the provisional annual conferences and districts they are likely to form in the coming months pose significant challenges to the convening conference’s organizers.
“It is a wonderful challenge to have, but it’s still very much a challenge,” said the Rev. Beth Ann Cook, chairwoman of the Transitional Commission on the Convening General Conference. “We have two compelling and somewhat competing tasks before us. For those of us who are already members of the church we are eager to advance its mission at its first gathering, and yet we also want to make sure we leave room at the table so we can include the voices of those who are still trying to join us.” (Editor’s note: Cook also serves on the Good News Board of Directors.)
Former United Methodist congregations account for the vast majority of GM local churches, and 80 to 90 percent of them are located in the United States. The people in these churches availed themselves of a provision in the UM Church’s Book of Discipline that allowed them to vote to disaffiliate from the church. However, congregations in Africa, Europe, and the Philippines were not afforded this opportunity. GM Church leaders are aware of local UM churches in these geographical areas that are in process of exiting the latter and joining the former. They also believe many more would like to do so but are still searching for an orderly way to make the transition.
Since March of 2020, a body known as the Transitional Leadership Council (TLC) has been responsible for the GM Church’s formation and it has led the nascent denomination since its official launch on May 1, 2022. Originally intended as a temporary, transitional body on the heels of the UM Church’s 2020 General Conference, where many people believed the UM Church would approve an amicable and orderly separation, the Covid-19 pandemic and three postponements of that General Conference kept the GM Church’s TLC functioning far longer than its members anticipated.
Early last year the council created and then tasked the commission Cook leads to plan the GM Church’s convening General Conference. She notes that the commission is composed entirely of laity and clergy who are serving as volunteers while they simultaneously holding down day jobs. The GM Church will announce soon the hiring of a full-time business manager to help execute many of the logistical plans for the conference.
“All the commission members are very excited and honored to play a role in helping organize the church’s first General Conference,” she said. “But they’re increasingly aware of the temptation to try to do too much at our initial gathering. Generally speaking, we’ve come to some consensus around critical things we want to accomplish: First, we want to engage in reverent and joyful worship giving God thanks and praise for bringing us to this point. Second, we want to attend closely to the Transitional Book of Doctrines and Discipline, amending it so it becomes the GM Church’s Book of Doctrines and Discipline. It must be a book that clearly states who we are, what our mission is, and how we intend to accomplish it, and it must receive the imprimatur of our duly elected lay and clergy delegates. And finally, we plan to adopt a constitution that guards our life-giving confessions of faith rooted in Scripture and the traditions of the church catholic and brings God honoring order to the church and protects her people.”
“Planning a convening General Conference that is God honoring and that is as fair and gracious as possible to those who are already GMC members and to those yet to join is an awesome responsibility,” said the Rev. Keith Boyette, the GM Church’s Transitional Connectional Officer. “I pray the Lord will pour out his Holy Spirit on us, making us a humble, patient, and grace-filled people as we take this step into the future he has for us.”
Between General Conferences, the denomination will be led by its bishops, and it is anticipated a duly elected body of clergy and lay people will serve on a Connectional Council. The latter will replace the Transitional Leadership Council.
“While it has been a great privilege to serve on the council, I think I’m speaking for all its members when I say, ‘We’re more than ready to pass the baton to a permanent body elected by the delegates to the convening General Conference,’” said Cara Nicklas, the TLC’s Chairwoman. “Our fervent prayers are with the commission planning the conference, with the annual conferences and districts who will elect delegates, and with our bishops who will preside at our conference sessions. I am confident it will be a time of great thanksgiving and praise.”
Walter Fenton is the Global Methodist Church’s Deputy Connectional Officer. You can read news reports and developments from the Rev. Fenton at GlobalMethodist.org.
by Steve | Mar 13, 2024 | March/April 2024
Extending Fair Disaffiliation Options
By Thomas Lambrecht
The main agenda items for the Renewal and Reform Coalition at the 2024 General Conference meeting in Charlotte, NC, April 23-May 3 relate to providing new disaffiliation pathways for churches and annual conferences that have not been offered a fair opportunity to disaffiliate so far. This will be an uphill battle. United Methodist bishops and other leaders want to turn the page on disaffiliation and put it behind them. UM leaders are aghast at the high number of congregations that have disaffiliated in the U.S., particularly in the South and Midwest. They do not want to lose any more.
So, the UM establishment is putting on a full-court press to prevent any more disaffiliation pathways from being enacted at the 2024 General Conference. It is important to understand why these pathways are needed and what the two pathways submitted by African delegates are designed to accomplish.
Why New Disaffiliation Pathways? United Methodists outside the U.S. have not been allowed to consider disaffiliation under the Par. 2553 pathway provided by the 2019 General Conference. This arbitrary decision by bishops without obtaining a ruling from the Judicial Council has disenfranchised the majority of the church that lives outside the U.S.
Some congregations and one annual conference outside the U.S. have been able to disaffiliate. They did so either by ignoring the requirements of the Discipline or by a negotiated pathway with their particular central conference. Such a negotiated pathway is not realistically available in all the central conferences, and it is never a good idea to foster ignoring of the church’s Discipline.
The Judicial Council has ruled that annual conferences may not disaffiliate unless the General Conference provides a process for them to do so. Several annual conferences in Africa or elsewhere may desire to disaffiliate. Therefore, it is necessary for the General Conference to provide a way for annual conferences to do so.
In the U.S., nearly a dozen annual conferences (out of 53) imposed extra financial and other costs on churches desiring to disaffiliate. These costs ranged up to 50 percent of the congregation’s property value, additional financial fees, and in some cases an outright ban on traditional congregations disaffiliating. Whereas, denomination-wide about 26 percent of congregations disaffiliated, in these conferences requiring extra costs only about 13 percent of congregations disaffiliated. And in the most extreme examples, less than five percent of congregations disaffiliated because the cost for doing so was nearly impossible for most churches.
At least two bishops and several district superintendents that we know of lobbied their churches not to disaffiliate in 2023. They said that the General Conference had not yet met, and that one could not be certain what actions it would take. They assured their congregations there would be a way to disaffiliate after the 2024 General Conference, if it took actions they disagreed with. In order to make good on those promises, the General Conference needs to enact a disaffiliation pathway for local churches that want to respond to the likelihood that the 2024 Conference will allow same-sex weddings, the ordination of non-celibate LGBT persons, and repeal the Traditional Plan.
Simple fairness and justice demand that the General Conference provides a realistic disaffiliation option for those outside the U.S., as well as those few congregations in the U.S., that have not had that realistic opportunity.
Annual Conference Disaffiliation. Right now, there is in the Discipline a way for an annual conference outside the U.S. to become an autonomous Methodist Church (Par. 572). It requires that the conference write its own new Book of Discipline and obtain approval from the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters, from the central conference in which the annual conference is located, from two-thirds of all the other annual conference members in that central conference, and from the General Conference. Due to the lengthy process and all the approvals required, the process can take years and is not certain to succeed.
In addition, the process requires the annual conference to become autonomous. But those annual conferences that might seek disaffiliation in response to General Conference action desire to join another Wesleyan denomination, not become autonomous. They should not be forced to go through the process of becoming autonomous in order to move to another denomination.
The Renewal and Reform Coalition is supporting a proposed new Par. 576 that would allow an annual conference outside the U.S. to transfer to another Wesleyan denomination. They could adopt the Discipline of that other denomination, rather than having to write their own. It would require only a two-thirds vote by the disaffiliating annual conference and the majority approval of its central conference. Local churches and clergy in that annual conference desiring to remain United Methodist could do so, with provision made by the central conference for a continuing UM presence where desired.
This much shorter and less laborious process would allow annual conferences outside the U.S. to determine where their most faithful future of ministry lies. They would not be forced to remain in a denomination that has changed its teachings in ways they cannot support. And they would not be subject to the uncertainty of a years-long process that may or may not bring about their disaffiliation.
Local Church Disaffiliation. The Coalition is supporting a proposed new Par. 2553 to allow local churches to disaffiliate, both outside and in the U.S. It would maintain the current requirements of Par. 2553 for two years’ apportionments and payment of pension liabilities. But it would prevent annual conferences from imposing additional financial costs on the disaffiliating church. It would also clarify the timelines for churches to disaffiliate, so that annual conferences cannot impose lengthy disaffiliation processes designed to discourage disaffiliation.
This new Par. 2553 would provide a realistic possibility for local churches to disaffiliate where they have not had the opportunity to do so. It would allow local churches outside the U.S. whose annual conference does not disaffiliate to make the decision that over 7,500 local churches in the U.S. have made.
In a recent fundraising piece for “Mainstream UMC,” self-proclaimed centrist the Rev. Mark Holland writes, “Seriously, in this day and age, what organization stays together through coercion?” We agree. Churches should not be forced to remain United Methodist if they do not want to do so. The failure to allow non-U.S. churches to disaffiliate and the imposition of draconian costs on churches in the U.S. amounts to coercion. A coerced covenant is no real covenant at all. A coerced and unfair remainder of churches in the UM denomination is not healthy or good for a denomination that wants to move in a different direction. Hopefully, the 2024 General Conference delegates will consider fairness and provide the needed opportunities for realistic disaffiliation that have been lacking outside the U.S. and in some conferences in the U.S. Future historians and a watching world will see if they do the right thing.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.
