UM leaders to gather next week in Corpus Christi

The 146th session of the Southwest Texas Annual Conference meets next week in Corpus Christi.
The regional governing meeting for 348 congregations in the southern third of Texas runs June 2-5 at the Bayfront Plaza Convention Center.
An “annual conference” in The United Methodist Church is more than a yearly meeting. An annual conference is the basic unit of denominational governance.
Within the church annual conference refers to a geographic region as well as a yearly gathering of clergy and laity representatives from all congregations in that region.
The Southwest Texas Annual Conference covers all or part of 78 counties. The conference area stretches from McCamey on the west to Columbus on the east and from Robert Lee on the north to the Rio Grande Valley on the south.
The conference meeting functions within the church much like a state legislative session within the U.S. federal system. The conference:
> Ordains deacons and elders and commissions other candidates for ministry.
> Provides pastors to congregations.
> Receives and acts on reports from conference agencies.
> Initiates regional programs to make disciples of Jesus Christ through local congregations.
> Approves a budget for regional and worldwide ministries and establishes apportionments to each congregation to fund that spending plan.
The voting body is composed of 667 clergy members ordained or licensed by the conference and about 667 laity members elected by local charge conferences or filling certain leadership posts. The number of voting laity members is to equal the number of voting clergy members.
Voting participants in the conference are officially “members,” not “delegates,” according to the UMC constitution.