2014 UM Polity Series: General Conference

For 2014 my articles will be focusing on United Methodist polity. (Polity is a fancy word to describe the way in which the church is organized, structured, and governed; it comes from the same root as politics.)  I have to confess that I am a polity geek; I really get into this stuff.
Today we start at the top with General Conference.  General Conference is the highest legislative body of the United Methodist Church.  General Conference is the only body that can speak for the entire United Methodist Church.  (An interesting piece of legal trivia: The United Methodist Church does not legally exist in that it is not incorporated and does not have a headquarters.  Our general agencies, institutions, annual conferences, and local churches are all incorporated and legally exist, we will say more about these in the future, but the United Methodist Church does not.)  The United Methodist Church only really exists during the 10 or so days every four years when General Conference is in session.
General Conference meets for approximately 10 days every four years (Presidential election years in the U.S.) during April or May and the location is rotated among five U.S. regions called Jurisdictions, more on these in a future article, and there has been talk of including locations outside the U.S. in that rotation.  The last General Conference was held on April 24-May 4, 2012 in Tampa, Florida.  The next General Conference will be held on May 10-22, 2016 in Portland, Oregon.  Arrangements for General Conference are mad by a committee called the Commission on the General Conference and a committee from the host annual conference.
The Constitution of the United Methodist Church sets the number of delegates to General Conference to be at least 600 and no more than 1,000.  In 2016 there will be 850 delegates, a significant reduction from 2012 in order to save money.  Each annual conference is awarded an equal number of clergy delegates (elders and deacons) and lay delegates based on its number of members.  At annual conference meetings prior to General Conference clergy members elect clergy delegates and lay members elect lay delegates on separate ballots.
It is of absolute importance to keep in mind that the United Methodist Church is a global church, not simply a U.S. church, therefore, General Conference is a global gathering.  The United Methodist Church is large and growing in Africa and there are United Methodist Churches in Europe and in the Philippines.  The number of delegates to General Conference from outside the U.S., particularly Africa, is growing.  It is projected that, 30% of delegates in 2016 will be from Africa, 58.3% from the U.S., 4.6% from Europe, and 5.8% from the Philippines, with the remainder from the Concordat churches.  (Concordat churches are other churches that exchange delegates with us, such as the British Methodist Church.)
General Conference receives and acts on petitions to make changes in the Book of Discipline and Book of Resolutions, or any other policies of the United Methodist Church.  Any individual United Methodist or United Methodist group can make a petition to General Conference.