United Methodists Plan to Share Power
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The United Methodist Church is considering a power-sharing plan that would give an added measure of strength to parts of the church outside North America, another example of a growing conviction in mainline churches that Christians overseas should operate on equal footing with their U.S. counterparts.
Under the plan, the denomination’s chief policy-making body, the General Conference, would be composed of an equal number of delegates from each of four regions--Africa, Europe, Asia and North America.
At present, the General Conference has representation based on membership. That gives the dominant voice to Methodism in North America, where the denomination has 8.9 million members, compared to 700,000 members in other parts of the world.
The plan to restructure the General Conference represents the work of a nine-member committee of the denomination’s Council of Bishops.
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