South Indiana Conference to vote on unity plan this Friday

e-HUM Announcement

June 4, 2008

South Indiana Conference to vote on unity plan this Friday

BLOOMINGTON - The South Indiana United Methodist Annual Conferences will meet in Bloomington at the Indiana University Auditorium beginning tomorrow, June 5, to discuss and vote on a plan for uniting the North Indiana and South Indiana Conferences. Last year both conferences voted to be one statewide conference rather than remain as two conferences divided just north of Indianapolis from east to west. The conference will conclude at noon on Saturday.

All plenary sessions of the South Indiana Conference will be Web cast. To connect to this service log on to the conference Web site at www.sicumc.org and click on to the conference information or log directly on to mms://sms7.omniproductions.net/umc.

The North Indiana Annual Conference session met in West Lafayette and voted on the Imagine Indiana Design Team plan on Friday afternoon, May 30. The ballot was then sealed.

The South Indiana Annual Conference will vote by written ballot on the same Imagine Indiana plan after discussion on Friday afternoon, in Bloomington. Both votes will be made known on Saturday morning during the closing session of the three-day conference.

The last such structural change of this magnitude to The United Methodist Church in Indiana came in 1968, when the former Methodist Church and former Evangelical United Brethren Church decided nationally to become The United Methodist Church.

If the 50-page Imagine Indiana Design Team Reportand resolution are approved by both North and South Indiana Conferences, a special session will be held at the Indiana State Fairgrounds on Saturday, Oct. 4, to finalize amendments, elect committees and begin plans for the first combined Indiana Annual Conference session planned to be held at Ball State University in mid-June 2009.

New features of the newly proposed annual conference will include:

Forming clergy into covenant groups and all 1,200 congregations into ministry clusters for the support and accountability to the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world;
Dissolving the current 18 districts across Indiana and establishing five centers to support the work of 10 districts;
Creating a new conference structure and establishing a new conference center in Indianapolis.

Currently, the North Indiana Conference is based in Marion. The South Indiana Conference is based here in Bloomington.

The 670 congregations of the South Indiana Conference represented by 1,200 members (50 percent clergy, 50 percent laity) are scheduled to meet tomorrow through Saturday noon.

Vote on new conference structure

A priority will be a report presentation, by the 12-member Imagine Indiana Team, to be led by the Rev. Dr. Adolf Hansen of McCordsville and the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Reynolds of Warsaw. The presentation is scheduled for Thursday at 3 p.m. in the Indiana University Auditorium at Bloomington. The presentation will be followed by breakout groups to discuss the proposals. Conference members will discuss and vote on the proposals for one Indiana Annual Conference on Friday, June 6, during a 3 p.m. session.

If the new design is approved, Indiana United Methodist Bishop Michael J. Coyner will appoint a transition team to implement plans for the new Indiana Conference. If the vote is against the unification plan, the North and South Indiana United Methodist conferences will remain separate for now. Both conferences must approve the new plan before it becomes effective.

Anti-gambling activist to speak at both conferences

The Rev. Tom Grey, national spokesman and field director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, will speak Thursday during the conference's plenary session at 2:45 p.m. about the increased expansion of legalized gambling in Indiana and ask Hoosier United Methodists to back a conference resolution calling on the Indiana General Assembly to pass legislation which will take future votes on any expansion of gambling to the citizens.

Grey also will speak during a 11:30 a.m. luncheon on Thursday in the Frangipani Room at I.U. Memorial Union in Bloomington.

Remembrance, ordination, commissioning and retirees

In other business, the United Methodist conference will remember deceased members, commission and ordain ministers, recognize retiring pastors, approve 2009 program plans and budgets. The Ordination and Commissioning Service in the South Indiana Conference is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday evening at the Indiana University Auditorium. The Rev. Peter Storey, former bishop of the South African Methodist Church, will be preaching.

During the South Indiana Conference, Bishop Coyner will ordain 5 Elders, 1 Deacon and 2 Associate Members, commission 12 probationary clergy, and acknowledge the retirement of 11 clergy representing 314 years of service.

All sessions of each annual conference are open to the public, but only clergy members and elected lay conference members from each congregation are permitted to vote on conference business.

*The 50-page Imagine Indiana Design Team Report and Resolution are available online at www.inareaumc.org, click on Imagine Indiana.

Imagine Indiana Design Team Resolution

The Imagine Indiana Design Team brings the following resolution for action by the 2008 regular sessions of the North Indiana and South Indiana Conferences:

That the North Indiana and South Indiana Annual Conferences affirm their decision to unite and form a new Indiana Conference in 2009 as the legal successor to the two current conferences.
That the new Indiana Conference be formed according to the implementation plan contained in this document, with the following essential ingredients:
1. Forming all appointed clergy into covenant groups and all congregations into ministry clusters for the purpose of support and accountability to the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
2. Dissolving our current eighteen (18) districts and establishing five centers to support the work of ten districts, with the final district lines drawn by the bishop and cabinet (The Book of Discipline, ¶ 415.4).
3. Creating a new conference committee structure which meets all the mandates of The Book of Discipline, but which also meets the unique missional needs of the state of Indiana (¶604). The 2009 session of the new Indiana Conference will elect the persons to serve within this new structure. Until that election, all current conference committees within the North and South Conferences will continue to function (with the exception of those identified in item 3 of this recommendation).
4. Bringing our two current conference offices in Marion and Bloomington and the bishop's office in Indianapolis into a new Indiana conference center in the greater Indianapolis area, including all financial, pension, insurance, data base, web site, and other support services into a unified system by January 1, 2010. This responsibility is assigned to the current Area Council on Finance and Administration (CFA) until such time as a new CFA or other committee is elected and assigned to this task by the new Indiana Conference.
That the bishop be authorized to name a Transition Team to oversee the transition from the current conference structures to the new conference, and to carry out the following: a) nominate a Board of Trustees and a Council on Finance and Administration to be elected at the called session in October 2008, and b) select a Committee on Rules and Structure, a Committee on Nominations, a Committee on Human Resources, and an Annual Conference Sessions Committee to serve in the interim until the 2009 Session of the new Indiana Conference.

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