General Conference elections

Friends, colleagues, and church family, in anticipation of this year’s Annual Conference and elections for the 2016 General Conference, I felt compelled to share the following message with clergy in South Carolina.  I want to share it with you as well and ask you to start praying, or to continue to pray, for all of our delegates and for our whole Connection.

Friends,

I have had a lot of folks ask me if I want to be elected as a delegate to General Conference. I understand the reason for the questions. After coming so close to being elected bishop in 2012, I told our jurisdictional delegation that I was “done,” and it was a good reflection of my feelings in the moment. But I have also never ceased to try to discern God’s call and to offer faithful service at all levels of the Connection. God willing, I have 13 more years to serve and I plan on doing it! I look older than I am!

After much prayer, I am not ready to give up the hard fought efforts that I think are necessary to preserve and renew the UMC. With so many people trying to push the denomination into intractable corners, we must be extra vigilant to maintain our identity. One of the issues coming up in 2016 is a subtle approach to split us into a regional polity that would allow UM’s in one region or another to have their own separate Book of Discipline. It is a circuitous method to move towards local options that are the antithesis of our connectionalism.

On hot-button issues this brand of congregationalism, in my opinion, would make lawyers extremely happy and could ultimately cause a mass exodus of faithful United Methodists who would rather stay together.  This was evident during the four years I spent as a member of the Worldwide UMC Study Committee, which was established by the 2008 General Conference to engage these very issues throughout the global church, and it remains so today.  I want to keep working for our denomination to find fresh ways to serve new, younger, and more diverse people without compromising the core values of our beliefs. I firmly believe in a mission statement that makes disciples for Jesus, and affirms through the Connection that “Together We Can Do More!”

So, as you vote for clergy delegates, please prayerfully consider voting for me. I love being back in the local church as the pastor of St. John’s in Aiken, but I still feel gifted and called to serve on the larger stage of our denomination. I need your help to speak up prophetically. I agree with Wesley: “In essentials, let there be unity; in non-essentials, let there be liberty; in all things, charity.” We are at a critical juncture of discernment in the UMC as we carefully define the essentials and the peripheral. Thanks!

Tim McClendon

Involvement in the United Methodist Connection

Effective local church pastor; Delegate to 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 General Conferences; District Superintendent (8 years); Conference Parliamentarian (21 years); Chair, Annual Conference Restructuring; Denman Evangelism Award recipient; Exec. Comm. Bd. of Ordained Ministry; Member of General Council on Ministries; Native American Forum; GBHEM Native American Scholarship Committee, SC AC Comm. on Native American Ministry

Connectional Table (8 years); World Wide Nature of the UMC Study Committee, Taught “Theology in the Wesleyan Spirit” and “UM Discipline and Polity” at Candler (12 years), and UM History at Lutheran Seminary; Chair, SEJ Rules Committee, and two quadrennia on SEJ Episcopacy Committee (second longest tenure on the comm.); 2011 Candler Distinguished Alumni Award; current member of General Commission on Religion and Race (GCORR)

General Conference and BOD legislation writer for 4 General Agencies of the UMC; published in Circuit Rider numerous times; and author of “A Potter’s View” Blog which has been frequently cited on UMC.org