General Conference Passes Worldwide Regionalization Plan

4/26/2024

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 26, 2024

CHARLOTTE—During a plenary session on Thursday, April 25, delegates at General Conference voted 586 to 164 in favor of a Worldwide Regionalization Plan. The stated purpose of regionalization is to give The United Methodist Church’s different geographic regions equal standing in decision-making. The legislation that was brought to the session of General Conference takes several steps toward that goal:

It renames and realigns the existing central conferences as regional conferences so there is equality in naming and the elimination of a label (“central”) that reminds all too much of the previous history of a segregated Central Jurisdiction in the United States. The result will be eight regional conferences (the existing, renamed "central" conferences and the United States).
It creates a regional conference for the United States, with powers parallel to that of the other regional conferences worldwide and makes room for regional conferences outside the United States to create jurisdictions within their central conferences if they so wish.
It provides greater clarity about the power these regional conferences have to customize the denomination’s Book of Discipline as adopted by the General Conference for the sake of mission and ministry in their own areas, and the potential greater autonomy annual conferences will have to be contextual in their mission and ministries.

It’s important to note that voting to affirm regionalization is requesting a structural change in The United Methodist Church and requires an amendment to the denomination’s constitution. A constitutional amendment requires at least a two-thirds vote at General Conference. The regionalization amendment received 78% of the vote at General Conference Thursday. However, in order for the Worldwide Regionalization Plan to be ratified, the amendment will also need at least a two-thirds cumulative total vote of all annual and central conference lay and clergy voters across the globe. This vote will most likely not be ready to happen until 2025.

To read more about the General Conference’s legislative action on regionalization, click here.

To read more about regionalization legislative petition submitted to General Conference, click here.

Ask The UMC—the official information service of The United Methodist Church— has explored ways that regionalization already exists for central conferences, as well as the implications of enabling a greater degree of regionalization for United Methodists in the United States. To read this “What is Regionalization?” series, click here.

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