(RNS) — After years of controversy over LGBTQ+ affirmation and same-sex marriage that split their denomination, United Methodists have ratified a plan to restructure the 57-year-old church to give regions around the world equal standing and greater freedom to tailor church life to local customs and traditions.
The so-called “regionalization plan” received overwhelming support, with 91.6% of United Methodists voting in favor of constitutional amendments to change the church’s structure, according to a church statement. The tally was 34,148 to 3,124, with both clergy and lay people voting in each conference, or regional body.
The plan decentralizes the role of the U.S., which gave birth to churches in Europe, the Philippines and Africa. Each of its nine regions across four continents will now have the ability to set its own qualifications for ordaining clergy and lay leaders, write original hymnals and rituals, compose their own rites for marriage and establish judicial courts.
Among the things that cannot be amended from one region to another are the church’s constitution, its doctrinal standards or its positions on social issues such as human rights, economic justice or care for creation.
The vote completes the process that began in April 2024, when the regionalization plan passed the General Conference, the denomination’s top legislative body. Since then, the denomination’s 120 annual conferences have been learning about the four constitutional amendments and then voting on them. The denomination had tried and failed to restructure before in an attempt to avoid schism over global differences on controversial issues, especially on whether to allow United Methodist ministers to perform same-sex marriage or whether church leaders would ordain openly LGBTQ+ people.
RELATED: With a final flourish, United Methodist conference eliminates all anti-LGBTQ policies
The inability to come to consensus resulted in the departure of more than 7,600 United Methodist churches in the U.S. — 25% of all U.S. congregations — in recent years. Even with those churches gone, differences remain: Last year, the church in the United States removed all barriers to full equality of LGBTQ+ members, a step churches in the Philippines and in Africa have been unable to make.
But with greater unity among the congregations that remained in the United Methodist Church, it was able to move ahead with restructuring. The overwhelming approval carried in this week’s vote reflects a new atmosphere of mutual trust, which had been tested during the years of strife.
“To have such unanimity across over 120 annual conferences in so many parts of the world, it shows me there is a level of trust in the denomination now that has not been present for many decades,” said Lovett Weems, a senior consultant at the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C.
In a statement, Council of Bishops President Tracy S. Malone called the vote “a defining moment in the continuing renewal and unity of The United Methodist Church.”
But her push for greater equality among the denomination’s regions was also framed as an effort to decolonize the church. Born of an 18th-century movement begun by John and Charles Wesley, the Methodist movement through its various schisms and realignments has for centuries been centered in the United States.
“There was a very strong feeling that the U.S. needed to not be the center of the church,” said Judi Kenaston, chief connectional ministries officer for the Connectional Table, a sort of denomination-wide church council that played a critical role in developing the plan. “We can’t make rules for everybody.”
While church regions in Africa, the Philippines and Europe have already enjoyed some leeway in customizing church life, the United States has not.
A committee will now be established to organize the United States into its own regional conference. Each region will also be able to revise some sections of its Book of Discipline, or rulebook, to fit with local custom and tradition.
“I have heard people outside of the church saying, ‘Well, this is just fragmenting the church.’ And I don’t believe that at all,” said Kenaston. “I really think this allows us to be united on the things that are truly important to the United Methodist Church.”
RELATED: Protestant denominations try new ideas as they face declines in members and money