By Valerie K. Maravolo and Stephen J. Hustedt

Bishops and conference leadership from within the Western Jurisdiction convened in Phoenix January 22-26 to continue planning for their future, one that is filled with fruitfulness and hope.
  
With the looming reality that the Western Jurisdiction will lose one Episcopal leader in 2012, a central focus of the gathering was evaluating the future of conference boundaries and Episcopal areas. During the meeting, representatives from the Conferences Committee presented the Jurisdiction with updates on the ongoing study of conference boundaries. Determining fair representation across wide geography and uneven population distribution presents a daunting task.
  
Several months ago the Western Jurisdiction Conferences Committee presented a recommendation that served as a starting point for the January 25 discussion. An updated version of that report is available on the new Western Jurisdiction Website www.westernjurisdictionumc.org. That report and discussion within the Western Jurisdiction College of Bishops introduced the idea of a “permeable boundary.” That is boundaries don’t necessarily need to be hard and fast, that conference can share resources with one another to become more functional. Examples that surfaced included assigning bishops to areas based on talents or superintendents that minister to churches within two neighboring conferences.
The group also acknowledged that this new idea would take time explore properly so it was agreed that conference boundaries will not be realigned and the 2012 Jurisdictional Conference. Rather, the College of Bishops will be given the responsibility of assigning Episcopal leadership to the conferences as they currently stand.

“It is not quite time for dissolution of boundaries or full merging, but we must continue these conversations,” said Bishop Robert T. Hoshibata, Assigned to the Portland area and president of the Western Jurisdition College of Bishops. It is likely this direction will become a reality during the next quadrennium. 

Ultimately, the Jurisdiction will need to address technical and adaptive challenges to the present boundary options being explored. A new committee was formed that will continue to evaluate how to move into this new vision of permeable boundaries and how this might begin to take shape.

In the meantime the College of Bishops is exploring a variety of options for how to adjust to having one less bishop in the Western Jurisdiction. Ideas include the Pacific Northwest Conference and Oregon Idaho Conference being one Episcopal area as well as evaluating the possibility of the Alaska Missionary Conference tethering to another conference.  These ideas and others will be fully explored by the College of Bishops and the final results will take effect in 2012.

In the spirit of permeable boundaries the Western Jurisdiction leadership team moved to continue to develop the Jurisdiction’s Communications ministry with continued maintenance and development of the website, development of other communications channels such as calendar of events, social media, email blasts and more. Maintenance and ongoing development of internal and external communications channels will be performed by the Communications Department of the Desert Southwest Conference and will be funded by the Jurisdictional Communications Budget.

At last year’s Western Jurisdiction Leadership Team meeting it was determined that a focus of the Western Jurisdiction must be to start new churches. To that end, and by way of lifting up the Jurisdiction’s quadrennial theme of Extravagant Hospitality, the event launched with a study on creating a local conference culture that supports new church planting. “By helping conferences to adopt policies or a particular way of doing things it makes it easier to plant new churches,” explains Desert Southwest Conference South District Superintendent, Michael Pearson. “The stronger the culture, the easier it becomes to change things like leadership, etc. For instance, when a new Bishop or Director of Connectional Ministries comes to a Conference, the transition is less difficult because everyone will already understand the established culture.” In an effort to understand how a culture of Extravagant Hospitality was being cultivated in the Western Jurisdiction, time was allotted for local conferences to reflect on the theme.

The jurisdictional gathering also fell during the week following the devastation caused by the Haiti earthquake, the Jurisdiction’s leadership team committed to honor the spirit of the Haitian people and UMCOR staff who were caught in or affected by the disaster. In addition to learning more about Haiti’s history, culture and economy, the Jurisdiction’s organized efforts, aptly called Operation Resurrection 2010, aims to collect $100,000 for recovery and relief efforts through UMCOR by Easter 2010. Additionally, there are plans to send 25 Volunteer in Mission teams to Haiti over the next 5 years, and replace the 23,000 health kits that were shipped from the UMCOR West Depot. Updates highlighting contributions by each conference will be posted weekly on the www.westernjurisdictionumc.org website. 

Committed to answering the call of Extravagant Hospitality, the Jurisdiction will meet again in 2011 with the focus on the Biblical response to the challenges of immigration. Additional information about the Western Jurisdiction Leadership Team meeting is available in the minutes on the Western Jurisdiction website.