Illinois Great Rivers Conference 2025 Journal-Yearbook
• Set standards for lay membership • Develop practices around marriage ceremonies, funerals and other rites that align with cultural contexts and laws in each country • Reorganize their annual conferences, districts or charge conferences to best serve their missional needs and convene their own judicial courts • Work with annual conferences to ensure policies and practices align with the laws in each country To view the changes if ratified, please see the secretary’s page at igrc.org. The changes are too extensive to list here. For more information, visit: https://www.resourceumc.org/en/partners/ connectional-table/home/resources/legislation/regionalization-legislation CA2: Inclusiveness The amended portion of the Constitution adds ability and gender to existing social categories that clergy in The United Methodist Church cannot use to discriminate against a potential member. Said another way, a pastor may not deny a person membership in the church because they have a disability, are female or male, married or single, young or old. If ratified, the paragraph would read as follows: ¶ 4. Article IV.Inclusiveness of the Church - The United Methodist Church is a part of the church universal, which is one Body in Christ. The United Methodist Church acknowledges that all persons are of sacred worth. All persons without regard to race, gender, ability , color, national origin, status or economic condition, shall be eligible to attend its worship services, participate in its programs, receive the sacraments, upon baptism be admitted as baptized members, and upon taking vows declaring the Christian faith, become professing members in any local church in the connection. In The United Methodist Church, no conference or other organizational unit of the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member or any constituent body of the Church because of race, color, national origin, status or economic condition.
CA3: Racial Justice
Overview & Historical Significance Article V of the Book of Discipline serves as a pivotal framework for the United Methodist Church’s commitment to addressing and eliminating racism in all its forms. Recent proposed changes to Article V, at the postponed 2020/2024 General Conference session in April/May 2024, have strengthened this commitment by explicitly recognizing the church’s role in combating racism, racial inequity, colonialism, white privilege, and white supremacy both within the denomination and in broader society. These changes reflect a critical shift in the church’s acknowledgment of and response to deeply entrenched racial injustice.
Legislative Items 143
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