For more than two centuries, General Conference has met at least once every four years.
Outside forces left their mark. In 1800, church leaders moved the gathering to the spring to avoid fall yellow fever outbreaks. In 1862, Southern Methodists shortened their session to two days because of the U.S. Civil War.
But until COVID-19, The UMC and its predecessors have never delayed the church’s top lawmaking assembly by more than a year.
With GC now postponed from May this year until Aug. 29-Sept. 7 in 2021, organizers of the big meeting are navigating uncharted territory.
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The Commission on the GC answered questions about what the delay means for how the denomination does its decision-making.
The UM constitution states that GC is to meet every four years. With a special GC in 2019, does the church meet that constitutional requirement even with the postponement?
The Commission feels that the requirement of Paragraph 14 is being met and worked to secure the first available date, attempting to not move any further away from the original dates than was necessary.
With GC postponed until August 2021, what will happen to petitions already properly submitted for 2020?
All petitions that were included in the Advance Daily Christian Advocate will be considered by the postponed 2020 GC.
Valid petitions that were submitted by annual conferences between the 230-day deadline and the 45-day exception (in the Book of Discipline) will be presented to the Committee on Reference for assignment to the appropriate legislative committee.
With the delay, can additional petitions be submitted?
The Commission is still considering the process for petitions submitted between the original dates of the 2020 GC and the postponed session in 2021. An announcement on this matter will be issued at a later date.
What happens to existing petitions with dates for implementation affected by GC’s postponement?
It will be the responsibility of the legislative committee or plenary body to amend the petition as submitted to include a new implementation date and any other dates that were included in the petition as originally submitted. The Committee on Correlation and Editorial Revision and the Advance Legislative Research Panel will also monitor these considerations.
In Paragraph 502.3, the Book of Discipline says delegates are to be elected “not more than two AC sessions before the calendar year preceding the session of the GC.” Does the delay mean any ACs will need to hold delegate elections again for 2021?
The sessions of the ACs held in either 2018 or 2019 elected delegations to the regularly scheduled sessions of the GC, jurisdictional conferences and central conferences to be held in 2020 and 2021.
Those conferences have not been canceled. They have been postponed to the next possible time allowed by public health and other international governmental bodies.
Should there be changes within the delegation that arise due to change of residence, membership standing, change of lay/clergy status, illness, death, etc., those would be cared for by moving reserve delegates forward in order of their election. It is important to remember that delegates to the jurisdictional or central conference serve as reserve delegates to the General Conference in order of election.
The commission said May 26 that it voted to gather a group of “creative thinkers, including young delegates, to explore the implications of options for accommodating full participation at GC,” including the possibility of online voting. Who are the people serving in this group?
This group has not yet been named. That process is ongoing.
If you are still working on any of these questions, do you have a timeline for when you’ll have an answer?
The Commission will be working through the issues and questions raised by the need to postpone the 2020 GC. Statements will be released as these issues are resolved.
excerpt from a story by Heather Hahn, multimedia news reporter, UMNS
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Delegates hold hands and pray during the Feb. 23, 2019, opening plenary of the special session of General Conference held in St. Louis. File photo by Paul Jeffrey, UM News.
