For the legislative language of all 18 resolutions click here.
By RJ Walters, Editor
There are 18 resolutions on the table for May’s Detroit Conference Annual Conference, but three of them figure to consume a large portion of the limelight.
The overwhelming theme of the trio is implementing change that will better equip the entire conference for the future.
The proposal, written by the Conference Council on Finance and Administration states the change would be effective no later than July 1, 2011 and Bishop Keaton would determine the boundaries of the new districts per the 2008 Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church.
"Changing demographics and financial constraints have motivated the CFA to introduce legislation to move to six districts," said Conference Council on Finance and Administration chairperson Carol Johns, in December. "We feel that this will provide a significant cost savings. What we are not doing is proposing the elimination of any district. We are calling for the redistricting of the entire annual conference."
Conference Treasurer Anna Morford said the conference estimates a savings of nearly $210,000 with the reduction of one district superintendent and his/her entire office.
Salary freezes already saved nearly $811,000 in 2009 and the 2010 budget is one that shows significant reductions from the year before.
The total approved budget for 2010 is $9,736,500 and includes pensions, general church apportionments, and funding for all connectional ministry and administrative agencies and conference programs.
That is 8.5 percent less than the 2009 budget and includes an 11 percent reduction of financial support to conference ministries.
Morford said the conference has lost nearly 47 percent of its members since 1970, thus a new administrative model must be looked at.
“The Board of Pensions has already made significant reductions over the last two years, so that has reduced some of the weight on the churches, and we also don’t have as many staff as we used to,” she said. “It just seems like there’s been such a shift in the makeup of our conference, it’s time to look at this part of our expenses and see if there’s some way to cut.”
If there are seven districts or six, communication is a vital function of the Methodist Church at local and regional levels, and the Conference Commission on Communications wants to make sure there is no church left out of the Web of interconnectivity.
The commission proposed a resolution that will make sure the main office of every church/charge in the Detroit Conference has broadband high-speed internet, “in order to provide a 21st Century communication connection between the conference, its local churches and pastors.”
While the exact number of churches that have fallen behind the digital times is unknown, Conference Director of Communications/ Program Committee Coordinator Paul Thomas said some churches have just decided “they don’t want to pay for high-speed (internet) because they don’t see the need.”
Thomas said he and the commission believe it is integral to the health of the conference that all churches have access to e-mail, streaming video, and especially the capabilities of Web conferencing, to save on travel costs.
If the mandate passes, the commission will make grants available to churches that currently do not have high-speed Internet and do not have the means to fund it within their own budget. The grants will help offset installation and implementation costs.
“We want to find out if a church has the money and just doesn’t want to do it or if there’s a financial need and they need help getting up to speed,” Thomas said. “We want to make sure churches are complying. There will be a check process and the follow-up is the responsibility of the commission and we’ll figure out why certain things are happening.”
The final resolution that figures to have long-standing implications for the entire conference is all about getting young adults more involved.
Ang Hart, the Conference Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries, and Sara Erickson, a member of the Young Adult Task Force, has proposed that the Young Adult Task force become an official conference commission called the Conference Commission on Young Adult Communities.
The task force has been around four years and they have worked to educate young adults and youth about the opportunities available in the conference.
The resolution proposes the new commission would have five lay women, five lay men and three clergy members, with at least eight being young adults.
The commission would receive a $3,000 budget each year to fund its endeavors and would be permitted to bring 15 young adults to Annual Conference each year.
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