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Annual Conference 2025: Constitutional amendments
March 25, 2025 / By Tara Barnes / .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
At annual conference this May, members will be voting on amendments to the United Methodist Constitution. Here’s what you need to know about this before our annual gathering in Syracuse.
What are constitutional amendments?
Like the U.S. Constitution, the constitution of The United Methodist Church is the denomination’s fundamental constituting and legal document. It can be found in The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, paragraphs 1 to 62. Amendments are changes to the constitution. Proposed amendments must first be supported by 2/3 of the voting delegates at General Conference, followed by approval—or ratification—by 2/3 of all voting members of every annual conference.
What is ratification?
In 2025, annual conferences will begin voting on the constitutional amendments passed by the 2024 General Conference. Ballots will be distributed during annual conference sessions, then votes will be tallied and sent to the Council of Bishops, who will track all recorded votes. Annual conference members can debate the amendments but cannot make changes.
Amendments are ratified via aggregate vote, meaning every individual yes and no vote is counted in the total. United Methodist Communications has an article and video that explains the ratification process in more detail. The Northern Illinois Conference has a handout sharing who can vote on constitutional amendments, and the New England Conference offers a helpful overview of the upcoming process. You can view additional resources on the Upper New York website here.
The ballots for the amendments are available for you to review now, provided by the Office of the General Secretary of the General Conference.
What constitutional amendments were approved by General Conference?
The amendments on which annual conferences will vote on are the following. The links will take you to more information. Worldwide regionalization requires a series of amendments, while the other three are simple changes to one paragraph. These amendments were submitted by the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters, the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women, the General Commission on Religion and Race, and the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry:
- Worldwide regionalization
- Addition of “gender” and “ability” to paragraph 4, article 4
- Racial justice
- Requiring a local pastor’s degree to come from a University Senate-approved seminary in order to qualify to vote for General Conference delegates
What else should we know?
These amendments were approved by more than two-thirds of the 700 elected delegates from around the world and came from collaborative and representative bodies in the church. Steps have already been taken to restructure the church in a way that better balances decision-making power, as the General Conference has established as U.S. Regional Committee, comprising all U.S. delegates to the General and Jurisdictional conferences and tasked with reviewing all U.S.-related legislation before the quadrennial, global conference.
The final votes will be counted by the United Methodist Council of Bishops during their spring 2026 meeting and will be announced soon after. United Methodist News has a comprehensive article on the process of ratification and the content of the amendments as well.
The United Methodist Church strives to be connectional, and it takes each and every one of us to do achieve it.
Take time to review the amendments before annual conference, and know our General and Jurisdictional Conference delegation is available for questions as you prepare. Keep our beloved church in your prayers as we work together toward its strong, meaningful, Spirit-led future.
Tara Barnes is Binghamton District Lay Leader and director of denominational relations for United Women in Faith.