UMC Has Experience to Prep Virtual General Conference

Most commentary, including mine, on the November 2021 North Central Jurisdictional Conference has focused on the passage of an aggressively liberal resolution. That resolution was rather predictable. Perhaps a more interesting part of that conference was when the jurisdiction’s liberal leadership suggested potentially holding a specially called, limited-agenda virtual General Conference.

The idea of a virtual General Conference, as suggested by liberal NCJ leaders, may have seemed outlandish as recently as 2019.

But now the United Methodist bureaucracy has developed a wealth of experience in how to arrange large, complex denominational conferences in online, hybrid, and distributed formats.

The immediate context of this discussion was how many are eager to move past our current interim arrangements for episcopal coverage and elect a new bishop. But the Council of Bishops has essentially determined that, at this point, jurisdictions can only elect new bishops after General Conference first meets.

As a possible way around this could at least theoretically be using technology to have a specially called General Conference in a virtual/online format, with a limited agenda. The overwhelmingly liberal officials who organized the November 2021 NCJ conference invited delegates’ small groups to give their feedback on doing this, if need be. The Council of Bishops has the right, under Paragraph 14 of the UMC Constitution, to schedule such a Genera Conference at any time. Among other things, such a General Conference was framed at the 2021 NCJ Conference as something which could result in jurisdictional conferences and new bishop elections happening shortly afterwards. 

Every delegate in my group of eight (in which I was the only conservative) was at least mildly supportive of having such a virtual General Conference if needed, as long as we could ensure integrity in voting and equity in global participation. I later learned of delegates in other small groups, across the theological spectrum, also expressing support for this idea. Note that these discussions took place in a smoothly managed virtual jurisdictional conference of more than200 delegates and alternates.

After all, across the past two years, United Methodists have become accustomed to at least temporarily transitioning to virtual formats for important church meetings at just about every other major level of UMC life: congregations (Sunday worship as well as Bible studies and committee meetings), district conferences, annual conferences, the Judicial Council, the Council of Bishops, and now jurisdictional conferences. 

So why could this not also be done for General Conference, if need be?

Last fall, the Rev. Thomas Lambrecht of Good News magazine outlined logistical details of how barriers to a virtual General Conference could be overcome in what has been called a distributed conference. The basic idea is that, if pandemic precautions prevented gathering all 862 delegates from around the world in one place, we could perhaps gather just the American delegates in Minneapolis. Then we would have one regional site with reliable high-speed internet for delegates in each of the seven central conferences outside of America. For General Conference deliberations, all of these delegates, in eight or so remote locations, would connect simultaneously via virtual connection. 

Citing the United Methodist News Service, Lambrecht noted the support expressed by prominent liberal Bishops Ken Carter, Cynthia Harvey, and Bruce Ough for exploring a virtual General Conference if need be.

Furthermore, for the last several years, environmentally concerned progressive United Methodists have been urging reducing the carbon footprint of denominational meetings. One major factor that has been cited in achieving this is “requir[ing] the least amount of travel for participants.” A distributed, virtual General Conference would serve this goal. 

A primary reason for a distributed format with a limited number of official meeting sites is that many delegates may not have reliable, high-speed internet access in their homes. This is especially an issue in Africa, but also remains a problem for some Americans.

As Dr. David Scott, a General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) official, has noted:

“This does not, however, mean that the Internet is completely unavailable in DR Congo or other developing nations. In almost every country, the Internet is accessible somewhere, usually in urban areas and/or hotels and conference centers that cater to global business travelers and NGOs.”

Furthermore, ambitious efforts have been underway to increase internet connectivity in Sub-Saharan Africa, building on recent history of growth. So the options for African delegates in a 2022 distributed virtual General Conference may be better and broader than even a few years ago. This format could even help bring greater African participation, considering how an unacceptable 31 African delegate seats remained unfilled throughout the 2019 General Conference (primarily due to travel visa issues).

Lambrecht’s aforementioned-article outlines how concerns about trust, fairness, voting integrity, and time-zone differences could be overcome in a distributed virtual General Conference.

Last year, an official Technology Study Team (with imbalanced membership) was cited in its recommendation against having such a General Conference. But the details of the basis for this recommendation were largely unconvincing, sometimes amounted to citing “difficult, but not impossible” challenges, and at some key points are now simply outdated (such as concern about certain travel restrictions expected “until fall of 2021”).

One basic question: is it really even technologically possible to have a virtual multi-day meeting of hundreds of voting assembly members in different locations conducting business and debating controversial proposals?

United Methodists have spent the last two years proving that, yes, we can. Annual conferences across the United States and in some other countries have held their yearly business meetings in either all-virtual or hybrid formats. The latter has sometimes involved gathering smaller numbers of voters at a limited number of official regional sites, similar to how a distributed General Conference might work.

Many of these virtual and hybrid annual conferences convened significantly larger numbers of voting assembly members than the number of delegates to the 2022 General Conference, which is strictly limited to no more than 862 delegates at any moment. 

I will be the first to say that this has worked much better in some places and not great elsewhere. But trying anything major for the first time is always a challenge. Bishops and other UMC bureaucrats now have had two years of learning from rookie mistakes and figuring out what does and does not work for organizing different sorts of virtual conferences and legislative deliberations. 

The next General Conference will probably have to meet longer than two-day virtual annual conferences by anywhere from an additional day to an entire week. (This frankly depends upon whether or not the Council of Bishops chooses to have a specially called, limited-agenda General Conference focused on the Protocol and a few other urgent issues, or a full General Conference with hundreds of petitions—which is a choice on our bishops’ part, either way.) But this is a difference of degree, not of kind. If a virtual denominational conference can be held over two or three days, then such a conference, with a bit more business before it, could also be held across four or five days, etc.

Some may argue that in any single annual conference, there are established ways of acting and longstanding local relationships that could make the gears turn more smoothly than gathering people from different annual conferences who do not know each other as well.

But last year, the majority of U.S. 2022 General Conference delegates participated in virtual jurisdictional conference sessions, primarily with delegates from other annual conferences.

Both the Western and Southeastern Jurisdiction convened virtually in July for specially called sessions.

From several delegates in the Southeastern Jurisdiction (SEJ), I have heard consistently that the dynamics of their virtual meeting were handled in a very smooth and professional way. As one SEJ delegate put it, “If anything, the processes [were] overly cautious to avoid any perception of rules being ignored.” Another delegate who is hearing impaired expressed appreciation for the closed-caption accommodations. In the words of another delegate, the 2021 SEJ virtual session “was very professionally done with abundant training and clear instructions” and “demonstrated that a large General Conference can operate quite well.”

I have plenty of complaints about some of the speeches and what was adopted at my own North Central Jurisdiction’s two-day virtual session last November, some of which I shared.

But I will give credit where credit is due. The online connectivity of the two-day NCJ 2021 virtual session all worked very smoothly as far as I could observe. We were able to have accessible live plenary presentations, legislative debates with timed speeches on opposing sides, last-minute amendments, unexpected floor motions, and a request for a ruling of law. Legislative proposals on which we voted, including amendments, were quickly and accurately displayed on screen for us to read. We delegates transitioned efficiently between plenary sessions and committee-like small groups (similar to processes that could be used for General Conference committees and sub-committees). We even have an unmoderated chat among all delegates in which I recall everyone behaving. For all the other problems of the conference, the technology worked remarkably well for us.

This was all for a jurisdiction that encompasses three U.S. time zones, in addition to delegates who were connecting from a fourth U.S. time zone and even one in Rome, Italy. The official list of first-day small groups showed over 200 delegates and alternates for the 2021 NCJ (with fewer delegates allowed in the second-day legislative debate).

The SEJ has 364 jurisdictional delegates.

No jurisdiction is as large as the 862-member General Conference. But again, this is a difference of degree, not kind.

As a lower-level trial run, these jurisdictional conferences have proven that such a way of United Methodist conferencing is doable, as long as those facilitating the meeting are competent and fair.

Now the majority of U.S. delegates have seen this firsthand. After all, the Southeastern, North Central, and Western Jurisdictions account for over 61 percent of all U.S. delegates to the next General Conference.

Yes, the full inclusion of non-U.S. delegates would necessitate slowing deliberations down to allow for oral and written translations.

But recall that the UMC’s denomination-wide commissions, councils, and agency boards have been having their important business meetings, with members from around the world and similar translation needs, in virtual platforms. These two years have particularly provided many lessons in what does and does not work for including Global South United Methodists who are not English-fluent and/or lack reliable internet in their home towns.

No, these international meetings of dozens of United Methodist leaders around the world are not as large as General Conference. But again, this is more a difference of degree than kind. If such virtual global meetings can be made to work for 100 United Methodists, why would 200 be impossible? And if for 200, why not 400? And if for 400, why not 862?

There is growing expectation that Covid-19 seems unlikely to completely “stop” anytime soon, but will remain a fact of life for the foreseeable future, which we will need to limit and manage. If Covid-19 is here to stay, to at least some degree, then everyone, in all areas of life (not just UMC-related) needs to figure out how to move forward, recognizing that burdensome lockdowns and putting life on hold cannot be imposed indefinitely.

Indeed, several other large denominations, including the international African Methodist Episcopal Church, have figured out how to hold their equivalents of General Conference in virtual, hybrid, or even in-person formats. There is no need for the United Methodist Church to continually stay behind the times.

Many annual conference officials have now learned how to hold virtual, hybrid, and/or distributed legislative assemblies with at least 862 voting members. The majority of active U.S. bishops and delegates now have experienced how to have official, major denominational conferences of full delegations from multiple annual conferences. And our denomination-wide councils, agencies, and commissions have now had two years to figure out how to best include in lengthy virtual business meetings participants who don’t speak English or who live in countries with limited internet access.

A virtual General Conference would involve combining these skills that have now been developed and are still developing.

Of course, in switching to any sort of virtual General Conference, transparency and trustworthiness would be of great importance. Some of us have witnessed such trust-shattering episodes in annual conference presiding as Indiana Bishop Julius Trimble simply declaring that the “nays” won a standing vote in which there actually appeared to be more “yay” votes (thus changing the result to become apparently more to his liking), suspicious last-minute schedule changes and not displaying key information on the main screen in ways that seemed to influence key votes, and Bishop Trimble using the chair position to weigh in on one side of a legislative debate.

The shifts to virtual annual and jurisdictional conference may have made things worse when those in charge were already not managing fully in-person conferences well. But I believe there are bishops across the theological spectrum who have presided with fairness and competence over pre-Covid conferences, and have continued to do so over virtual conferences. Of course, trust, integrity, and transparency in the process are ultimately essential for whatever format the next General Conference may take.

All of this is somewhat aside from debates about whether a fully in-person or other format is more preferable, all things being equal. Some may argue that some benefits of having all 862 delegates physically together in the same meeting room outweigh the significant cost savings and relatively greater Covid-19 safety we could likely expect in a distributed virtual General Conference.

But the last two years, especially the recent jurisdictional conferences, have demonstrated that if for whatever reason a “normal” General Conference would not be feasible or desirable, then our denomination has a wealth of recently developed experience that now could be applied to organizing a virtual General Conference.