Pictured from front, left-right: Michael Townley; Rev. Margie Schleicher; Rev. Melanie Carey; Sarah Musson, Lay Member; Rev. Sonrisa Cortes, Wesley-MSU Campus Director; Jay Makowski, UUMC Lay Leader; Kris Mellon, Lay Member; Natalie Blunt, Lay Member; Rev. Rick Blunt; Rev. David Berkey, Director of Michigan Area UM Camping; Rev. Alice Fleming Townley.
The 2025 Michigan Annual Conference theme was “Unfinished: Growing Up and Into Christ.” The mood was light and fun, but the work ahead was quite a lift. Given the vote in which the General Conference 2020/2024 passed proposed constitutional amendments, it was now up to each Annual Conference to vote on those amendments to the constitution. They were for Regionalization, updating inclusive language, strengthening Article V of the UMC Constitution, and education requirements for voting eligibility of clergy delegates to General Conference. Undaunted, we voted on the Constitutional Amendments. Now, we will have to await the results, which will be announced in November of this year, to see if the threshold of 66.67% of worldwide voters was met.
Over the past year, eight more Churches closed and we celebrated their history while empathizing with the pain of closure. Additionally, fourteen churches left the conference this year and we remembered their good works and wished them well in their future.
The conference Teaching Segment speaker highlighted the need for the future of the United Methodist Church to come from a Blank Slate. Rev. Jasmine Smothers, of the Atlanta First United Methodist Church, taught us how to approach the future with a “Blank Slate”, the title of her newest book. She spoke of spanning generations, and thinking about if we had to start from scratch, how would we design today’s church? What does our church (meaning us, not the building) need to do to meet our congregational needs of the 22nd Century? She shared with us the changes being made to the land of Atlanta First to build low-income housing around the church building, based on the need made visible by people with housing insecurity sleeping on the steps of the church. Her message was very eye-opening and liberating!
We continued by celebrating laity activities from the past year. It was exciting to see all the new ways that the Church lay people are continuing to do good work in spite of a challenging environment. There was an opportunity to participate in an EngageMI Mission Festival where you could donate Mission Bucks that would be matched in real dollars! Lots of other activities were offered, and many participants wore orange on Sunday to call for an end to gun violence.
We participated in passing all proposed legislative resolutions. We passed financial items, including the Conference Budget for 2026 which has a conference budget reduction of 5.4% and benefits budget reduction of 4.0%. It is important to note that UUMC continues to pay our Ministry Shares in full. The plenary also passed the 2026 Equitable Compensation Schedule, the 2026 Past Service Rate, and Housing/Rental Allowance for Retired or Clergy on Disability. Further legislation passed included Re-Prioritize Federal Spending from the Military to Human Security, Generative Artificial Intelligence (passed as requesting a task force formed by Bishop’s office to examine, no rules established, will come back to Annual Conference 2026), Call for Two States: Israel and Palestine, Mandatory Protection Policy and Ethics Training for Clergy, Chevron Boycott, Holy Land Excursion Boycott. The Haiti Gardens of Hope made it to the consent calendar and was passed.
To close out the conference on Sunday, we were also able to witness the Commissioning and Ordinations of new clergy, deacons and elders.
Natalie Blunt, Lay Leader Jay Makowski, Kris Mellon and Sarah Musson were proud to represent University United Methodist Church as your Laity Representatives at Annual Conference, along with Pastor Melanie Carey. Please feel free to reach out to any one of us if you have any questions.