The petition to remove the Disaffiliation Agreement (Petition # 21087) and to Delete ¶2553 from the Book of Discipline was passed by a 71.88% vote of 519 to 203. From the Advance Daily Christian Daily Advocate, “The rationale for this petition was as follows: This paragraph expires and does not need to be included in future editions of The Book of Discipline. Churches seeking to disaffiliate will negotiate with their annual conference. This removal begins to alleviate much of the negative connotation.”
The Reaffiliation Agreement, as amended, will now allow for Annual Conferences to create processes with local churches who wish to rejoin the United Methodist Church. The amendment will require that reaffiliating churches agree to the Trust Clause as part of their reaffiliation process and passed 386 to 304. This was adopted by an 86.76% majority (629 to 96).
In this afternoon’s work, Bill Waddell of Little Rock, Arkansas was elected to the Judicial Council as a layperson for a 4-year term. According to Resource UMC, the Judicial Council is the highest court of the church. It determines the constitutionality and legality of acts or proposed acts of the General, jurisdictional, central, and annual conferences based on the church’s constitution and other parts of The Book of Discipline. His service will begin immediately following General Conference.