Restructuring for Vital Change

When considering how to restructure the Baltimore-Washington Conference for more vitality, more than a thousand clergy and laity made it clear. They were seeking a configuration that created increased relationships, collaboration, innovation, discipleship, and connection.

The new plan is intended to offer just that. 

While the details of the plan are nuanced; in a nutshell:

• Five to 12 local churches are grouped in a Collaborative Hub in a shared, geographically-based mission field. Each hub will have a designated Connecting Church, to facilitate collaborative work and vitality.
• Moving from eight districts to six for missional effectiveness. Each Hub will be assigned to a district where the congregations share common challenges/environments.
• This creates opportunities to network across perceived boundaries and learn from one another in diverse, and yet similar, contexts.
• The hubs and districts are organized into two administrative regions.

As part of this process, at the May 2024 session of Annual Conference, members voted to reduce the number of districts from eight to six. 

Restructuring Timeline

The timeline for implementation begins in June 2024 and ends July 1, 2025.

 Phase 1: Increasing Local Church Awareness and Organizing into Hubs

• June 1, 2024: Members to AC are given restructuring materials to take back to their churches. 
• June 15, 2024: A survey is sent out to the pastor plus nine key leaders of all churches to facilitate the formation of congregational groups/hubs. A separate survey is sent to clergy only regarding their covenant group status.
• July 12, 2024: Assess any impact on the restructuring plan of General or Jurisdictional Conferences.
• January 2025: Use collaborative hubs to create and publish districts and regions.

Phase 2: Establishing the Centralized Administrative Group and Organizing District

• January: Publish region information. DCOMs (and other district committees) create transition plans.
• February 2025: Streamline processes and centralized admin pool created. Provide draft of district and region information to the Rules Committee, Discipleship Council and Nominations Committee so that the leadership report, policies and procedures can be updated.
• March 2025: Publish a list of churches per district. D
• March 20254: Develop an annual evaluation tool for ministry leaders that measures a church's missional impact and leads toward increased church vitality.

 Phase 3: Accountability Systems and Details Completed

• April 2025: Vitality management system for accountability is completed.
• After Easter (April 20, 2025): Collaborate Hubs are published. 
• May 13-15, 2025: Final details relevant to church leaders presented at Annual Conference with a tool for local churches to understand who is in their support system.
• June or September 2025: Hub Kick-off Event
• July 1, 2025: New collaborative hubs, districts, centralized admin regions, clergy groups and accountability systems are in place with resource groups. 

Phase 4: A Vitality Management system for holistic accountability is developed after evaluating the first year of hubs (2026-2027 ministry year).

See a report on the complete restructuring plan. 

As part of this process, at the May 2024 session of Annual Conference, members voted to reduce the number of districts from eight to six. 

Several members of the Restructuring Task Force explain different aspects of the restructuring proposal:

Every aspect of the restructuring plan is interwoven with the values of the BWC and its vision of creating vitality mission and ministry in every local church. Resources to help local churches share with their congregation the vision and potential of Restructuring for Vital Change are available.