General and Jurisdictional Conference Delegate Nominations

Greater New Jersey is electing delegates for the 2020 General and Jurisdictional Conferences of the United Methodist Church during the Annual Conference in Wildwood on May 19-21, 2019.

General Conference is the top policy-making body of The United Methodist Church which meets once every four years. The conference can revise church law, as well as adopt resolutions on current moral, social, public policy and economic issues. It also approves plans and budgets for church-wide programs.

The 2020 General Conference will be held in Minneapolis, MN., May 5-15, 2020. Four clergy and four laity from Greater New Jersey will be elected to serve as delegates to General Conference. General Conference delegates will also serve the Jurisdictional Conference.

The Jurisdictional Conference also meets every four years to elect new bishops and select members of general boards and agencies.

The Jurisdictional Conference will be held July 13-17, 2020 in Hunt Valley, MD. Four additional clergy and four additional laity will be elected to serve as delegates to the Jurisdictional Conference. The first two lay and clergy delegates to the Jurisdictional Conference will also serve as reserve delegates to the General Conference. Three lay and three clergy reserve delegates will be elected for the Jurisdictional Conference.

It is an honor and responsibility to serve as a delegate. It provides the opportunity to be involved in the denomination and work with United Methodists throughout the nation and world, praying, worshipping together and deciding legislation.

General Conference delegates are assigned to a legislative committee. They study resolutions that have been submitted for changes to the Book of Discipline. They divide into work groups to summarize and present information to the entire delegation to address legislation. The main focus of Jurisdictional delegates is the election of new bishops.

Delegates should be prepared to invest themselves fully in the General and Jurisdictional Conferences.

General Conference delegates must commit to 12 days for the General Conference in Minneapolis (10 days for the conference and two days for travel) plus five days for the Northeast Jurisdictional Conference for a total of 17 days. Jurisdictional Conference delegates must commit to five days. In addition, there will monthly pre-meetings with the delegates in Greater New Jersey before the conferences and thousands of pages to review to prepare for legislation.

Meetings at both conferences start at 8 a.m. and can last until 9 p.m. or later. Travel expenses will be paid for by the conference for full delegates. Reserve delegates will be responsible for their own travel expenses.

All forms need to be completed in full and submitted by March 31. Completed nomination forms will be posted on the website as submitted in alphabetical order for review. They will also be included in the pre-conference journal for the 2019 Annual Conference.

The completed nomination forms will be posted as submitted, so please be thorough in answering the questions. There will be no editing by GNJ staff.

One picture can accompany the nomination and should be emailed separately to Brittney Reilly, Online and Digital Communication Manager. Picture quality should be high resolution (ideally at least 300 dpi). The photo should be sent as a separate attachment (not embedded in a word document).

We strongly suggest all nominations be completed online and submitted by March 31. Anyone nominated from the floor during annual conference will not have their biographical information shared prior to voting.

We encourage people to prayerfully discern the movement of the Holy Spirit during the two month nomination process.