PLATTSBURGH — New organization of the United Methodist Church throughout New York state will unite upwards of 1,000 churches in an effort to improve ministry and more efficiently use church resources.
Over the last 40 years, four of the state's United Methodist conferences — the Western New York, North Central New York, Troy and Wyoming annual conferences — had seen decreasing membership, which the church has viewed as a missional decline.
GRASS-ROOTS RESPONSE
The trend has been the same in most of the church's five jurisdictions throughout the country, and in response, the General Conference called for a reduction in the number of Episcopal areas in each jurisdiction. That led to the formation of the Upper New York Annual Conference; the Uniting Conference was held June 19 with Bishop Marcus Matthews of Syracuse appointed Episcopal leader of the new entity.
The conference, officially opened July 1, includes some 48,000 square miles, 940 churches and more than 180,000 members.
Because the four upstate conferences were some of the smallest of the 13 in the Northeastern Jurisdiction, church leaders in the area had for several years been preparing for the organizational overhaul.
"It became apparent that once the reduction would take place, that two of more of these conferences would be targeted for some kind of change — in other words, they would probably be merged," said the Rev. Henry Frueh, superintendent of the Adirondack District, which is comprised of 82 United Methodist and Federated churches in Franklin, Clinton, Essex, Hamilton, Warren, Saratoga and Washington counties.
"This area was likely to be chosen because the Troy and Wyoming conferences were two of the smallest, and there was one bishop for those tiny conferences."
Before that could happen, Frueh said, the two bishops overseeing the four conferences proactively formed committees within each conference to explore what changes might be proposed to the jurisdiction.
"As a result of that — and that was several years in the making — the four conferences proposed coming together to create one new annual conference. … It was a grass-roots proposal from the bottom up, not from the top down."
NOT OVERNIGHT
The new conference encompasses almost all of the four previous conferences of New York, with the exception of churches in the lower Hudson Valley that are now part of the New York Annual Conference. That one includes churches in New York City and on Long Island.
What were once 14 districts throughout the four conferences has been reduced to 12 in the new one. The Embury and Central Lakes districts, due to their size, are being discontinued.
Additionally, churches from Vermont that were once part of the Troy conference joined the New England Annual Conference. And those from northern Pennsylvania that were a part of the Wyoming Conference joined those from central New York to form the Susquehanna Annual Conference.
"So by this one action, six annual conferences have been affected, and that is something that's never happened before," Frueh said.
The church is working consciously, he said, to ensure that members do not view the change as simply an administrative merger.
"What we are looking for is a truly new way of doing things, a new way of doing church," he said.
In the short term, local churches will not see much change, continuing to function with their pastor as normal.
"The hope in the long run is that what we can do as a conference will affect our local churches," he said. "We will be greater in number. We can consolidate some resources and expand others."
In particular, Frueh said, the church hopes the conference will provide increased support staff to local churches "to help them retool for effective ministry to the world."
But that won't happen overnight, he said, and there remains some concern by smaller churches "that they will be swallowed up or, in the worst case, closed. But that is certainly not the desire or intention of creating a new conference," he said. "The desire is to strengthen churches."
DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
While Frueh said no churches should worry about a closure, still undetermined is the new conference's financial impact.
"That is the question I keep hearing. And we don't know yet entirely because all of the financial pieces of this have not been figured out yet."
Frueh has also fielded many questions about ministry at the local level, which is most pertinent to adhering to the vision and purpose of the church.
He believes the new structure will allow the local church to place a stronger focus on its mission.
"From my point of view, the church should exist for those who are not a part of it," he said. "Those who are on the margins of society, those without power, those who've been forgotten, the vulnerable — those are the folks the church ought to be most concerned about, rather than itself as an institution."
The Rev. Edie Poland, pastor at both the Keeseville and Harkness United Methodist churches, said there has been ample interest in the new conference alignment at the local level.
"The local church is the integral unit of the Methodist Church, so a lot of local churches want to know what happens on the conference, state, national and even the international level. But how we do ministry locally is where a lot of that energy goes."
Poland said that because the change was discussed throughout the four previous conferences for a long time, it was a democratic process.
"Everyone who wanted to take part in this and to say something had the opportunity to do so," she said, adding that the change so far has felt like an administrative one.
Local members of the church are optimistic, she said, about meeting all of the new faces at conference events, growing their network and bolstering the church's efforts overall.
The challenge for the church, Frueh said, will be in getting to know one another in the new conference.
"We used to be connected to 300 churches, and it was a challenge but it was manageable. Suddenly, we are connected with 900 or 1,000 other churches, and it suddenly seems as though the family is so large, it's difficult to know who is who."
The conference's 2011 budget will be presented, discussed and voted upon Sept. 11 in Albany.
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