Reversing part of an earlier decision, The United Methodist Church’s highest court revoked its call for an additional regular session of General Conference between 2025 and 2027.
However, the Judicial Council maintained its earlier ruling that no new delegates be elected to the coming General Conference, except under very limited circumstances.
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The next regular session of the international denomination’s top lawmaking assembly, originally planned for May 2020, is now scheduled for April 23-May 3, 2024, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In Memorandum 1485, the Judicial Council ruled — with italics and bolding for emphasis — “the regular session of General Conference that is to be convened following the upcoming 2024 regular session, would be held four years thereafter, in 2028."
With the memorandum released on Nov. 2, the church court modified its earlier determination in Decision 1472 related to the scheduling of General Conference after the 2024 session.
The modification to the decision comes as the Judicial Council and other United Methodist leaders are contending with delays in General Conference unseen in the nearly 240-year history of the denomination and its predecessors.
General Conference draws clergy and lay delegates as well as bishops from four continents. In Memorandum 1485, the Judicial Council noted, “restrictions and emergency measures were not completely lifted internationally until 2023.”
On its own motion, the Judicial Council — a co-equal judiciary with the Council of Bishops’ executive and General Conference’s legislative branches — decided to amend its earlier decision.
The memorandum also clarified its earlier rulings in both Decisions 1472 and 1451 related to delegate elections to the coming General Conference.
“There shall be no elections to replace the delegateselected to serve at the regular session of General Conference initially scheduled for 2020,” the church court said, bolding for emphasis. “Furthermore, there shall be no elections to fill vacancies except in the very limited circumstance referenced herein.”
Basically, the Judicial Council wants to ensure that unless their status has changed, United Methodists duly elected to serve as delegates in 2020 will still be able to do so now that General Conference is scheduled four years later.
The reason for this determination, the church court said, is that — before COVID shut down travel — annual conference secretaries had already submitted the names of duly elected delegates to the General Conference secretary who was prepared to issue credentials to those United Methodists.
A number of U.S. annual conferences held elections earlier this year to fill vacancies in their jurisdictional conference slates. Bottom line: They will have to wait to see what General Conference decides.
excerpt from a story by Heather Hahn, assistant news editor for UM News.
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