On October 10, 2018, the six Ethnic National Plans gathered to discuss the future of racial/ethnic work in the United Methodist church. As a result, the Plans are committed to embody the unity of Christ through engaging, activating, and moving together toward the collaborative response to the changing mission of the church.
The staff and board members of the United Methodist national ethnic plans are currently engaged in a process of discerning and exploring new forms, structures and methods that will help advance our work together beyond the year 2020.
We, the diverse communities represented by the six national ethnic plans, are persuaded by God’s spirit that our unity rests in our diversity of color, race, language, theological, and cultural perspectives. Therefore, we will honor the distinctiveness of each context and the ethnic communities just as creation nurtures and embraces us all.
The following are cornerstones of this vision:
- This mutual effort and comprehensive process must be compatible with the purposes of our respective ethnic plans.
- Those unique purposes must reflect a multitiered and multicultural partnership for program design.
- More needs to be explored about how this new collaboration can be implemented.
Our obedience to the divine mandate is the only force behind our confidence, which will be sustained by working on partnership program development together.
At this time, the respective staff, appropriate board and committee members will continue to represent their own ethnic plans across the connection and will respond to the needs of our church partners in relevant ways. Our strategy will manifest a clear programmatic context and expression of the total mission of The United Methodist Church.
“It is grounded upon God’s supreme mode of self-revelation–the incarnation in Jesus Christ. God’s eternal Word comes to us in flesh and blood in a given time and place, and in full identification with humanity. Therefore, theological reaction is energized by our incarnational involvement in the daily life of the Church and the world, as we participate in God’s liberating and saving action.”
– 2016 Book of Discipline ¶105
On behalf of the leadership of the six national ethnic plans of the United Methodist Church who met on October 10, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia.