Earlier installments in this series have been devoted to commending the General Superintendent/TLC Plan and critiquing the Florida/Hybrid Plan for Global Methodist Bishops. Part six now sketches three essential improvements to the General Superintendency Plan. It is by far the best plan before us, but it's not where it needs to be. You could say the General Superintendency Plan (like any Methodist) needs to go on to perfection. And, once perfected, it will serve us well. Each of these adjustments could be easily made in committee. And if they are, it will make the work of the plenary session all the more simpler. Here goes.
1. Complaints Against Global Methodist Bishops
As it stands, the General Superintendency Plan has complaints against bishops going to the General Committee on the Episcopacy. If a complaint involves abuse, the Committee itself must handle the complaint. But if a complaint involves something other than abuse (e.g., misconduct, unsatisfactory performance), it may be referred to the Assembly of Bishops for adjudication. This is, in short, unacceptable. One of the main reasons episcopal accountability was impossible in the United Methodist Church is because bishops were accountable to their jurisdictional College of Bishops. And when a College of Bishops wanted to protect one of their own from a filed complaint, they did exactly that. The complaint would just go away. If the General Superintendency Plan is to have integrity and the confidence of the Church in its processes for accountability, all complaints against Global Methodist bishops should be handled by the General Committee on Episcopacy. This is an easy fix. It will require the amendment of petition 080 (Judicial Administration) and petition 032 (Episcopacy & Superintendency). Both petitions should be changed to ensure all complaints against bishops, without exception, are handled by the General Committee on Episcopacy.
2. Selection of Conference Superintendents
The General Superintendency Plan currently states that bishops appoint the conference superintendent after consultation with the annual conference connectional council or equivalent body (Petition 033/Para. 507). I think additional language should be added to clarify the nature of that consultation and state explicitly that a conference superintendent shall not be appointed by a bishop without the consent of the annual conference connectional council or equivalent body. The annual conference will have a much better sense of who the best person is to fill the conference superintendent role. We don't need a situation where a bishop could appoint a conference superintendent unilaterally with only a nod to a "consultation" process. We've shifted to give local churches a collaborative role in the selection of the pastor to be appointed; analogously, the annual conference should have a truly collaborative part in the selection of the conference superintendent to be appointed. I think this was first brought to my attention when it came up in Andy Miller's interview with Ryan Barnett, who is a candidate for interim bishop. It's an easy fix and entirely reasonable. And it significantly improves the plan.
3. Option for Part-time Conference Superintendent
The last thing I'll mention in this post is that Petition 033 needs to be amended to explicitly state that an annual conference may elect to make the conference superintendent a part-time role. There are a number of annual conferences which currently have a part-time president pro tem, and some of them (if not all) intend to keep the conference superintendent position part-time also. Language should be inserted to guarantee this as an option for the annual conference. This is key to keeping the General Superintendency Plan maximally flexible for annual conferences in terms of administrative structure and cost. This is how we're operating now; there's no reason we shouldn't keep operating this way as presidents pro tem become conference superintendents.
If these three adjustments are made, the General Superintendency Plan will provide maximum flexibility to annual conferences to structure their administration in a way that suits their strategy for ministry. It will also do the most to keep costs at a minimum. I imagine there are additional improvements that I've not thought of. If so, leave a comment and let me know what they are. I'll reiterate that all of this work could be sorted out in committee. That will put the plenary session of the Convening Conference in the best place to get the work done easily. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to implement these changes and perfect the General Superintendency Plan.
Watch this video for a succinct analysis of all the key issues
Dr. Matt O’Reilly (Ph.D., Gloucestershire) is Lead Pastor of Christ Church in Birmingham, Alabama, Director of Research at Wesley Biblical Seminary, and a fellow of the Center for Pastor Theologians. A two-time recipient of the John Stott Award for Pastoral Engagement, he is the author of multiple books including Free to Be Holy: A Biblical Theology of Sanctification, Paul and the Resurrected Body: Social Identity and Ethical Practice, The Letters to the Thessalonians, and Bless the Nations: A Devotional for Short-Term Missions. Follow @mporeilly on X and @mattoreillyauthor on Instagram.
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