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Methodist Building Blocks

Last month, I indicated that I will be sharing about the building blocks of United Methodist organization and calling it “Wesley’s Legos.” John Wesley (UMC founder) had a method to the organization he created. It’s my hope you’ll know and understand this a little more over the next several columns I’ll share with you.

I used to love dumping the big container of Legos on the floor, in preparation of building something. I think houses are what I built the most. To lay a foundation, I would part out all of the largest Legos, the ones with eight raised up “pegs.” One could say they were the most basic, foundational Lego. When added with other individual Lego bricks, an entire wall of a Lego house can be built – and something has been built that can do more than the individual brick can do on its own. For the sake of using this illustration for understanding United Methodist organization, let’s call this individual brick the Charge Conference.

Organizationally, the Charge Conference is the most basic element of United Methodist Church organization. First Bethel is a local church, and it is a Charge Conference. The local church speaks to who we are as a gathered group of local-dwelling, worshipping Christians, overseen by a resident clergy person/pastor. The Charge Conference speaks to how we relate to a larger whole – the United Methodist Church. That is why the Charge Conference is always overseen by our Conference Superintendent, so one can think the Charge Conference equals First Bethel plus the Conference Superintendent (formerly called District Superintendent). Our Church Council is amenable to the Charge Conference. The administrative committees such as Finance and SPRC are amenable to Church Council.

Using the Lego illustration again, sometimes churches are smaller than an eight-pegged Lego, and it takes two or more smaller Legos to equal a larger one. In UMC organization, this happens, where two, three, or more churches are formed into one Charge Conference. This is called a multi-church Charge Conference. A local example is the “Best Friends in Christ, United Charge” consisting of Fawcett (Bridgeville), Canonsburg First, and John Wesley (Washington) United Methodist Churches.

A geographical collection of charges are formed into District Conferences. But the next organizational level I’ll cover is the Annual Conference. We’ll play Wesley Legos again at that time!

Journeying Together,

Pastor David