JCM 1209

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1330&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1201&EN=1211

BALANCE BETWEEN CLERGY AND LAITY AT ANNUAL CONFERENCE

For years, attendance at annual conference sessions has usually been around sixty percent laity and forty percent clergy. The formula for trying to balance membership between the two has been one lay person for every clergy member. As clergy have lived longer and had resulting health problems which interfere with their attendance, the percentage of laity present at annual conferences has risen.

A petition removing those elderly and infirm pastors had three arguments against counting them toward the balance formula. Clergy have no alternates who may attend in their place if they cannot come; those infirm pastors are still counted toward the balance even though they don’t attend; and the extra lay members add to the cost of annual conferences. This item was quite thoroughly discussed in plenary on Thursday, May 3, the day before the end of General Conference (pages 2730 – 2732) and was passed.

At the beginning of Thursday’s evening session (p. 2737), a motion was made with no discussion to refer the action on this matter to the Judicial Council and it passed nearly unanimously.

But the Council was busy sorting through the very long and involved decision they needed to make about denominational reorganization as well as the matter they were working on for JCD 1208 so they deferred this item to this fall’s session.