Regionalization Does Not Yet Authorize Regions to Create or Abolish Jurisdictions

By Rev. Luan-Vu “Lui” Tran, Ph.D.

Heather Hahn’s March 16 UM News article “Church leaders explore future of jurisdictions” reports that United Methodist leaders are exploring a future in which each regional conference could decide for itself whether to have jurisdictions. That is an important conversation, and it may well be a necessary one. 

But before the church debates whether such a policy is wise, it must first face a more basic question: does the Constitution already permit it? The answer, at least for now, is no. Regionalization has opened the conversation. It has not yet supplied the constitutional authority. 

The ratified Worldwide Regionalization Plan did not place the future of jurisdictions into the hands of the regions themselves. Instead, the constitutional text retains this authority at the General Conference level. The amendment states that the General Conference has power “[t]o change the number and the boundaries of regional conferences, and to change the number and the boundaries of jurisdictional conferences upon the consent of a majority of the annual conferences in each jurisdictional conference involved” (¶ 17.12). 

That constitutional language is decisive. It means that any change to the current jurisdictional system in the United States still requires two things: action by the General Conference and the consent of a majority of the annual conferences in each jurisdiction involved. 

That is why the current proposal described by Hahn remains only a proposal. According to the UM News report and the newly released study brief, leaders connected to the Connectional Table and the Standing Committee on Regional Conference Matters Outside the United States are considering legislation that would leave the question of jurisdictions to each regional conference. Outside the United States, the study notes, some regions may conclude that jurisdictions are unnecessary. In the United States, some may eventually conclude that the inherited five-jurisdiction structure has outlived its usefulness. 

Those are serious structural questions. But under the Constitution as it now stands, regional conferences do not yet possess independent authority to create jurisdictions where none exist or abolish them where they do. 

The reason is straightforward. Regionalization expanded the powers of regional conferences in important ways, but not in this way. The ratified amendments give regional conferences substantial adaptive authority in matters such as their own books of discipline, qualifications for lay membership and clergy standards, marriage and funeral rites, and judicial processes relating to regional adaptations (¶ 32). Yet, the constitutional text does not say that regions are given free-standing authority to determine the existence of jurisdictions. That power remains constitutionally assigned elsewhere. 

If the church wants regional conferences to decide this question for themselves, it must amend the Constitution again. One path would be to revise the General Conference powers in ¶ 17 so that the General Conference may expressly delegate this authority to regional conferences by legislation. Under that model, the constitutional power would remain lodged in the General Conference, but the General Conference could authorize regional conferences to exercise it under legislated terms. 

A second path would be more direct: remove jurisdiction-specific authority from the General Conference power clause (¶ 17.12) and place it in the regional conference powers (¶ 32), so that each regional conference itself would constitutionally possess authority to change the number and boundaries of jurisdictions, still subject to the required consent of the annual conferences involved. 

The difference is not technical. Under the first option, both General Conference and regional conferences would remain constitutionally involved. Under the second, only the regional conferences would hold the operative authority. 

Without such an amendment, an ordinary legislative attempt to let regional conferences decide whether to create or abolish jurisdictions would face a serious constitutional objection: unauthorized delegation of power. The Judicial Council has said repeatedly that powers constitutionally assigned to one body cannot simply be handed to another by ordinary legislation. 

In Judicial Council Decision (JCD) 1210 (2012), the Council declared that “the creation and establishment of general Church boards and agencies, the fixing of their structure, the determination of their functions, duties and responsibilities, and the establishing of Church priorities are legislative functions reserved to the General Conference alone,” and that “[t]hese legislative functions may not be delegated.” The specific subject matter in JCD 1210 was different, but the constitutional principle is directly relevant here. 

That same line of reasoning appears in the older delegation cases. In JCD 409 (1976), reaffirming JCD 339 (1971), the Judicial Council warned that if each annual conference is free to decide matters for itself “without guidelines or controlling standards,” the connectional system is undermined and “the General Conference may not so delegate its constitutional responsibilities.” 

Later structure decisions continued to cite JCD 339, JCD 409, and JCD 680 (1992) as part of the controlling connectional framework when conference bodies attempted to exercise authority beyond what the Constitution and Discipline allowed. 

The point is larger than annual-conference structure. In United Methodist constitutional law, authority must remain where the Constitution places it unless and until the Constitution itself is amended. 

So, the real issue before the church is not whether jurisdictions should continue forever. The real issue is whether regionalization has already authorized regions to decide that question for themselves. It has not. 

The church may ultimately choose a future in which some regional conferences have jurisdictions and others do not. It may even choose a future in which the U.S. Regional Conference eventually moves beyond jurisdictions altogether. 

But that future cannot be reached by implication, aspiration, or ordinary legislation alone. It must be reached by constitutional amendment. 

Until then, regionalization does not yet authorize regions to create or abolish jurisdictions.