United Methodist Church Organization

When Methodists use the term “connectional,” they mean that each of the congregations is connected to each other through a system of jurisdictions and conferences.  The highly organized United Methodist Church has an overall General Conference of the United Methodist Church, which meets every four years, and has full legislative power over all the church’s corporate “connectional matters.”

Moreover, every United Methodist Church (UMC) belongs to a conference and a district.  Cornerstone UMC belongs to the Fayetteville District.

Fayetteville District is privileged to have churches within four counties: Cumberland, Hoke, Harnett and Sampson. The Fayetteville District consist of 54 Charges, 58 Pastors, 64 churches, 1 District Superintendent, 1 Administrative Assistant and approximately 21,000 lay members.

Fayetteville District which is one of twelve districts of the North Carolina Annual Conference, also called our "annual conference." Our Conference area consists of churches throughout all of North Carolina and is supervised by Bishop Alfred W. Gwinn, Jr.. Representatives of each church in an annual conference meet once a year to consider issues facing them all, and issues likely to be considered at the next meeting of the General Conference.

Our conference belongs to the Southeastern Jurisdiction, one of five jurisdictions in the USA.

Conferences are legislative bodies composed of representatives of each congregation and all the ordained ministers recognized by the conference.

Bishops preside over conferences.  They appoint ministers to serve congregations.

Each district, which comprises about 60 churches, is presided over by a district superintendent

Pastors are members of conferences, not individual congregations.

Among other activities, Districts provide training for member congregations and staffs.

The twelve district superintendents in the North Carolina Annual Conference comprise the bishop’s “cabinet,” which assists in making pastoral appointments and in dealing with pastoral problems.

Glossary of Terms: Term definition

bishop

An elder (ordained minister) who is elected to the office of bishop. Unlike the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox traditions, The United Methodist Church considers the episcopacy an “office” and not a third order of ministry (along with deacon and elder). A United Methodist bishop is consecrated for the office of bishop by other United Methodist bishops. A bishop serves as a general superintendent of the denomination. As such, individually and collectively bishops give general oversight to the temporal and spiritual interests of the entire denomination. It is a responsibility of the bishops to see that the rules, regulations, and responsibilities developed by the General Conference are understood and effectively carried out. The Greek word for bishop is episcopos, which is the root word for episcopal.

jurisdiction

The five geographic areas in the United States, each composed of several annual conferences as determined by the General Conference: North Central, Northeastern, South Central, Southeastern and Western.

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