Annual Conference Review

Pastor: Amen. And this morning as Zach comes up, Zach is here to share with us the Annual Conference report, to share the business that happened at the North Georgia Annual Conference just a couple of weeks ago. And so I will turn it over to Zach.

Zach: I do want to start just that I was very thankful to get to go to Annual Conference this year. I was lucky that I got to go to the last North Georgia Annual Conference, which I’ll get to in just a minute.

Thursday started early, at 8:30, with Bishop Robin Dease preaching out of the book of Luke. The theme of this conference was “Unto the Least of These.” She urged members to remember the faces of those overlooked in our society. When this takes place, the future of this conference and the denomination will be more Christlike. She ended by saying, “If you aren’t close enough to smell the sheep, you aren’t close enough to lead the sheep.”

Afterwards, we were welcomed by the UGA president and the mayor of Athens. Soon after the business session started, I was very surprised to see that the larger church was run very similar to the way we run everything at Inman. A report was given celebrating the 70-year mark since women were given full clergy rights. There are currently 371 clergywomen serving in our Annual Conference.

Many votes were taken throughout Thursday and Friday, and we took more votes, and then we took more votes. In between the votes, we heard reports from many of the United Methodist ministries and task forces. We heard from the chair of the Housing and Homeless Committee. We heard from the Salary Equalization Task Force, which is tackling the problem of current disparities among clergy compensation.

You could say that the headliner of this conference was the One Georgia report. This is the unification plan, which they summed up in three words: mission, vision, and strategy. Unification is not the end of the North Georgia Conference, but it’s the beginning of something even better. Due to disaffiliation, the North Georgia Conference budget decreased by 39%. The church count decreased by 42%. South Georgia’s budget went down by 72%, and the church count went down by 74%. So it’s the only smart way forward. South Georgia took a vote on June 1. It passed by 96% to join the two conferences together. And then we voted after this report, and it passed by 96% as well.

The night ended with an ordination and commissioning service. I heard one of the most moving sermons that I have ever heard. I looked up on the big board and could see a vessel popping out of the gentleman’s head, and I knew that it was about to be a very good service. He ended by saying, “People are aching for a church that kneels like Jesus did.”

Friday was another day of voting and a day full of reports from more ministry organizations. A budget was presented but will not be expected to be followed since unification is going forward starting on January 1. We celebrated retirees, and we had a Service of Remembrance for the saints who have passed. We heard from the Trustees, United Women in Faith, Wellroot Ministries, Wesley Woods, and the UMCOR Disaster Warehouse and Camp Glisson.

The churches that I’m about to list are churches that closed this year: Allen’s UMC, Fountain of Love UMC, The Fountain UMC, Trion UMC, Kensington UMC, Free Liberty UMC, Marvin UMC, Rex UMC, Mount Pleasant UMC, Fayette Friendship Community, and Warm Springs UMC.

By the third day I was starting to get the hang of everything, and I was sad that it was coming to an end. We opened Saturday morning with a devotion followed by reports from other ministries and committees. After a while, the closing worship began. The new appointments were read for the upcoming year, and it was followed by a very large communion.

This ends my report on the 2026 North Georgia Conference. If anybody has any questions, please feel free to ask. And once again, thank you Brad and thank you Whitney for helping me out. It would have been completely different without the both of you there helping me along. So thank you.