Quilt Presentation Celebrates Diversity and Creativity
At the 2025 Northern Illinois Annual Conference, the NIC Anti-Racism Task Force unveiled the Arts & Culture Quilt—a powerful symbol of unity, justice, and cultural pride.…
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Visit the Resource UMC page on Constitutional Amendments
Watch a recording of the educational webinar
Read the Amendments in Context
People in the following categories only are eligible to vote on constitutional amendments:
Lay and clergy members of Annual Conferences may debate the constitutional amendments as printed. However, they may not change the wording of the proposed amendments in any way.
Right now, the church in the United States is organized into five Jurisdictions. Northern Illinois Conference is part of the North Central Jurisdiction. One of the main tasks of Jurisdictional Conferences is electing and assigning bishops. The United Methodist Church outside of the United States is divided into eight Central Conferences. Central Conferences are those located in Europe, Africa, and the Philippines.
The Annual Conferences in both the Central Conferences and the United States send voting representatives to the quadrennial General Conference, which makes decisions on behalf of the entire denomination. These appear in the Book of Discipline and Book of Resolutions. The Central Conferences may adapt these rules to fit their contexts. The United States’ conferences may not. Thus, Central Conference representatives vote on rules they can adapt but the United States conferences may not. Also, many legislative proposals submitted to General Conference relate to the United States context only.
This amendment would discontinue the phrase “Central Conference” and reorganize the worldwide church into equal regional conferences. The church in the U.S. would become a regional conference (retaining jurisdictions). The regional conferences may make rules for themselves that do not bind other regional conferences. There are parts of the Discipline that would be the same for all of the regional conferences: the constitution, those sections identified as the General Book of Discipline, “Doctrinal Standards and Our Theological Task,” “The Ministry of All Christians,” and the Social Principles’ preface, preamble, and paragraphs 160-166. The rest may be adapted by regional conferences to fit their contexts.
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The amended Paragraph 4, Article IV in the constitution would read, “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.”
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The new version would read: “The United Methodist Church proclaims that from God’s goodness and love, God created all persons as God’s unique and beloved children. Racism opposes God’s law, goodness and love and diminishes the image of God in each person. Fueled by white privilege, white supremacy and colonialism, the sin of racism has been a destructive scourge on global society and throughout the history of The United Methodist Church. It continues to destroy our communities, harm persons, obstruct unity and undermine God’s work in this world. Racism must be eradicated. Therefore, The United Methodist Church commits to confronting and eliminating all forms of racism, racial inequity, colonialism, white privilege and white supremacy, in every facet of its life and in society at large.”
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An equal number of lay and clergy delegates are elected by Annual Conference voting members. Clergy elect clergy and laypeople elect laypeople. Local pastors (who are not ordained) are not eligible to vote for either lay or clergy delegates.
The amendment allows clergy (ordained or licensed) who meet certain educational requirements to qualify to vote for clergy delegates. They must have completed course of study or a master of divinity degree from a University Senate-approved theological school (or its equivalent as recognized in a Central Conference) and have served a minimum of two consecutive years under appointment immediately preceding the election.
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