By Lisa Diehl, Kansas Area communications director
During its meeting July 18-21 in Oklahoma City, the South Central Jurisdiction unanimously approved boundaries for the new Great Plains Annual Conference and assigned Bishop Scott Jones to serve the new area.
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| Bishop Scott Jones presides over the South Central Jurisdictional Conference July 20 in Oklahoma City. (photo by Lisa Diehl) |
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| Members of the Kansas East Conference delegation at the 2012 South Central Jurisdictional Conference. (photo by Lisa Diehl) |
The episcopal assignments were announced around 11:15 p.m. July 20 at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City following a lengthy meeting of the South Central Jurisdictional Episcopacy Committee.
The 256 delegates to the South Central Jurisdictional Conference unanimously approved the resolution to establish the boundaries of the new Great Plains Annual Conference to encompass the current boundaries of the Kansas East, Kansas West and the Nebraska conferences excluding the Native American congregations, which are all included in the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference.
The jurisdiction includes the United Methodist churches in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
Rev. Adam Hamilton, head of the Kansas East delegation and senior pastor at United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, thanked the members of the transition team for taking what some might have seen as a negative and turning it into a positive.
Hamilton said there are many challenges for the new conference, particularly the geography involved. Combining the three conferences will create the largest geographic conference in the jurisdiction.
“The people of Kansas and Nebraska looked at the challenge and said, we can do that,” Hamilton said. “We are looking forward to becoming a new annual conference and leading the South Central Jurisdiction.”
The General Conference of The United Methodist Church voted in 2008 to reduce the number of active bishops in the United States by one in each jurisdiction to allow more bishops to be elected in areas where The United Methodist Church is growing, especially in Africa.
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Bishop assignments for South Central Jurisdiction |
| Arkansas - Gary Mueller |
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Central Texas - Mike Lowry |
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Great Plains - Scott Jones |
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Louisiana - Cynthia Harvey |
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Missouri - Robert Schnase |
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North Texas - Michael McKee |
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Northwest Texas/New Mexico - to be filled by Council of Bishops |
| Oklahoma/Indian Missionary Conference - Robert Hayes |
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Rio Grande/Southwest Texas - Jim Dorff |
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Texas - Janice Huie |
All three conferences voted in May and June to approve a proposal to create one new annual conference. Following that vote, the conferences petitioned the South Central Jurisdiction, which is charged with establishing the boundaries of annual conferences, to change the boundaries of the conferences to create the Great Plains Annual Conference.
Jones will be serving three conferences from Sept.1, 2012, through Jan. 1, 2014, when the Kansas East, Kansas West and Nebraska conferences become one new conference to match the geography of the episcopal area.
The new Great Plains Area will include nearly 1,000 United Methodist congregations and more than 229,000 United Methodists in Nebraska and Kansas. Jones has served as bishop of the Kansas East and Kansas West conferences since his election in 2004.
The Southwest Texas and Rio Grande annual conferences also petitioned for and received boundary changes allowing the two conferences to become one, also effective Jan. 1, 2014. A name has not yet been selected for the new conference.
Missouri Area Bishop Robert Schnase, who gave the episcopal report July 19, said the jurisdiction has a large and fertile mission field for growing vital congregations and changing The United Methodist Church from within.
“We celebrate with you, and we’re looking forward to your leadership,” Schnase said. “We need to continue to learn, to experiment and to innovate. Change is going to happen one person, one church, one conference at a time. We believe the South Central Jurisdiction is poised to take leadership in The United Methodist Church at this critical moment. The clarity of the mission is stronger here than anywhere else in the church.”
