2020: Our Emerging Vision

The degree to which our world is changing, and especially the Western United States and Pacific Rim, gives development of a vision for the Western Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church an urgency that we cannot ignore. Changing demographics alone require that by the year 2020 we must have changed as a church, in order to continue to be a faithful and effective vehicle for God’s work. If we are to live into the vision we have developed, we must start now, but we must also continually be open to corrective lenses. Thus, our vision is an emerging vision, moving us to become ever more nearly the church God would have us be.

Foundational to the emerging vision of the Western Jurisdiction is the denominational mission of making disciples for Jesus Christ. The various elements of the following vision all move us in the direction of making disciples:

A home for all God’s people, gathered around a table of reconciliation and transformation: the Western Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church is multicultural and inclusive, engaged in the life of its communities, with confident, effective lay and clergy leadership who, in diverse ministry settings, form disciples who live out the Good News of Jesus as global citizens.

For details about the development of the emerging vision, please see pp. 95-99 of the Journal of the 2004 Western Jurisdictional Conference.