Tuesday, March 04, 2008

General Conference Delegations quiz

I was surprised by a few of the things about the General Conference delegations this year. Namely, who would have the largest delegation. I thought it was Florida last time I looked. Can you guess who it is this year? (Answers below)

1. Largest Delegation?
2. Second Largest Delegation?
3. Third Largest Delegation?
4. Largest Delegation in each Jurisdiction?
5. Largest "Jurisdiction" at GC?





















1. Nigeria with 44 (West Africa Central Conference)
2 N. Katanga with 38 (Congo Central Conference)
3. Virginia with 30 (SE Jurisdiction)
4. SE--Virginia: 30, NE--Balt/Wash, and W. Penn with 16 each, NC--W. Ohio: 22, SC--Texas: 22 (that's east Texas, including Houston), W--Cal/Pac, Cal/Nev with 10 each.
Interesting sidenote, the top 4 conferences in SEJ all have larger delegations than the largest delegations from other largest jurisdictions: Virginia: 30, N. Georgia: 28, Florida: 26, W.N.Carolina 26 (all larger than the 22 from NC and SC). Also interesting, only the Red Bird (2) and Memphis (6) conferences are sending delegations smaller than the largest delegation from the West (10), the others are all larger.
5. The Central Conferences are the largest "jurisdiction" at General Conference with 276 delegates. We like to paint the SEJ as the "bullies" at GC, but they actually come in second with 252. SCJ has 148, NC 138, NE 126, West 40, Concordant churches (independent Methodist denominations who still have a say at Gen. Conf: 10) The whole Western Jurisdiction is outnumbered by the Nigeria Conference alone. Maybe that explains why all my West Jurisdiction pals from seminary were always whining about being pushed around at GC.

Here are all the numbers, if you are a geek like me.

2 comments:

  1. And here's some interesting stats from the Pew Forum:

    UM's (in the U.S., I think)

    Region
    South, 46%
    Midwest, 29%
    Northeast, 16%
    West, 8%

    Race
    White, 93%
    Black, 2%
    Latino, 2%
    Other, mixed, 2%
    Asian, 1%


    More at http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=2429873&ct=5078325

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  2. New Mexico (SCJ) is down to 2 delegates as well.

    ReplyDelete