| Restructure plan aims to improve work of church By John A. LovelaceUnited Methodist News Service As it did four years ago, The United Methodist Churchs top legislative assembly will once again consider a proposal for reordering the work of the denomination when delegates meet April 27-May 7 in Pittsburgh. General Conference all but gutted the earlier proposal, brought by a Connectional Process Team, but it salvaged pieces of the plan. The resulting Living Into the Future plan proposes merging the work of the denominations program-coordinating and finance agencies into a Connectional Table, which would oversee ministries budgeted at more than $500 million per quadrennium. Advocates say the proposal would bring the widespread denomination together. United Methodists have congregations and other ministries on four continents Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. All regions would be represented at the table, along with the Council of Bishops and officials from the churchwide general agencies. Critics say the proposal would weaken the fiscal accountability and auditing function performed since 1972 by the denominations finance and administration agency. Some opponents also take issue with the size of the table. Even the documents proponents anticipate that it will be revised, which is standard procedure for United Methodist General Conferences, which meets once every four years. The document, as presented, would fold the two top-tier coordinating agencies into the Connectional Table as of Jan. 1, 2007. Those agencies are the General Council on Finance and Administration, with a 41-member governing board, and the General Council on Ministries, governed by 78 members. Ten other agencies accountable to the General Council on Ministries would retain their free-standing boards, with about 500 directors, but be accountable to and represented at the Connectional Table. Living Into the Future is the General Council on Ministries response to a mandate given to it by the General Conference four years ago to create the most effective design for the work of the general agencies. The mandate is the latest in a series of efforts by General Conference over the years to improve the operation and coordination of churchwide ministries. The councils conciliar officer, Cecelia M. Long, explained that in fulfilling this assignment, input was sought from annual conferences, central conferences, general agencies and others from across the church. The council has offices in Dayton, Ohio. GCOM believes Living Into the Future provides the most effective setting for visioning, discernment and decision-making by members with a holistic view of the church, Long said. This proposal is an initial step, not the final step. The Connectional Table would determine what further changes are needed, she said. The table would recommend any such changes to the General Conference for approval. The document is closer to current structure than were several proposals that surfaced within the General Council on Ministries in 2000, soon after the agency began working on the assignment. One idea called for dissolving the boards of most of the denominations 14 agencies into one General Board of The United Methodist Church. Living Into the Future evolved through several council meetings, regional hearings and drafts by a writing team. The council adopted it in September 2003 for referral to the General Conference. One of the documents most insistent critics is the councils own elected secretary. The Rev. Andy Langford, senior pastor of Central UMC in Concord, N.C., acknowledges that the proposal suggests a closer relationship between finances and ministry but leaves a group of general agencies even more distant from people in the pew and (leaves) even more distrust and inertia throughout the (whole church) connection. In a 4,500-word written response, Langford said he hopes that the Pittsburgh gathering will set aside Living Into the Future and make the serious reforms that our denomination so badly needs. He indicated that the preferred model would be smaller, less expensive and less centralized. Like all proposals for changes in United Methodist Church law, Living Into the Future will go first to the appropriate legislative committee, in this instance the 95-member General Conference Committee on General Administration. The committee could decide to accept Living Into the Future, develop a different restructure proposal or retain the status quo. | 
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