The United Methodist Church is organized as a connectional structure, with mutual responsibilities and accountabilities that allow us to make a tremendous impact through world mission. Each UM congregation pays a share of the cost of churchwide ministry, called an apportionment.

For every apportioned dollar spent by our congregation, 82.3¢ stays in the local church to pay for everything from Sunday school books and the organ to your pastors' pensions. About 4.2¢ of that dollar supports missions, staff salaries, administration, and programs overseen by the churchwide agencies. The remaining 13.5¢ fund ministries in our annual conference and jurisdiction, such as church camps.

Your 4.2¢ joins with those of others around the world to support more than 1,000 missionaries and mission personnel working across the globe.

United Methodists also have historic ties to 123 U.S. schools, colleges, and universities, including 13 seminaries and 11 historically black colleges. The denomination recently built and is still developing Africa University, the first private, four-year college in Zimbabwe.

Being connected to Catalina UMC makes you truly part of something big. You are at work in the name of Christ all over the world!

When you join a congregation, you join a charge. (Sometimes pastors are assigned to more than one congregation; each pastoral assignment is a charge.)

Laity play an important role in leadership across the church; in fact, they hold some of the highest offices in the denomination. Each congregation has a lay leader assigned to inspire other laity to become involved in mission and ministry and to make disciples.

Your church or charge, along with 40 to 80 other churches in your area, form a district. Each district is lead by a superintendent who works with the bishop to oversee programs and administrative operations in your region.

An annual conference is the territory covered by and the legislative body of a given geographical region. Sixty-six conferences are in ministry in the United States and 51 are in Europe, Africa and the Philippines.

Annual conferences approve programs and budgets for their respective areas, elect delegates to General and jurisdictional conferences and approve candidates for ordination.

Elected for life, bishops appoint clergy annually to churches and other assignments. Some bishops have more than one conference under their supervision. The region a bishop oversees is called an episcopal area.

The United Methodist Church does not have a lone presiding officer (like a Roman Catholic pope). The only body that can speak for the entire denomination is the General Conference. It is our highest legislative assembly, with up to 1,000 lay and clergy delegates.

General Conference meets every four years for two weeks to establish church law (compiled as The Book of Discipline). The assembly also develops statements on contemporary issues and compiles them into The Book of Resolutions.

The United Methodist Church is ecumenically minded; we are part of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., the World Council of Churches, the World Methodist Council (representing 33 million Methodist Christians), the Commission on Pan Methodist Cooperation and the Consultation on Church Union.

Profession of faith (or confirmation for youth). If you've never been a member of any church, you can join a United Methodist congregation by professing Jesus Christ as your Savior. The church espouses one baptism; if you've been baptized, "rebaptism" is not necessary. The church will honor your Christian baptism.

Renewal of vows. If you once belonged to a church but are currently inactive, you can join by renewing your Christian vows.

Transfer of membership. Members of a United Methodist church or another denomination may have their membership moved to another United Methodist congregation.

Affiliate or associate membership. If you have reason to retain your membership in another church (such as your hometown church If you've relocated for an extended period), you can still become an affiliate or associate member of a United Methodist congregation. Consult your pastor.

Commonly called "the Cross and Flame" (though it has no official name), the current emblem for the denomination was adopted after The United Methodist Church was established in 1968. Although the two churches that united to form our denomination had their own symbols, unionists agreed the formation of a new church called for a fresh insignia.

United Methodist Communications staff artist Edward J. Mikula designed the emblem. The cross was chosen because it is the most recognized Christian symbol.

The flame embodies the Holy Spirit, the Pentecost experience as described in Acts and Methodist founder John Wesley's conversion experience at Aldersgate where his heart was "strangely warmed."

Miscellany

• More than 42,000 United Methodist local churches exist worldwide.
• More than 4 million people participate in United Methodist Sunday schools.
• United Methodists practice "open communion", which means no one can be turned away from the Lord's Table.
• Nearly 4,000 women pastors serve in The United Methodist Church. The Council of Bishops includes nine women as active bishops and one retired. The first United Methodist woman bishop, the late Marjorie Matthews of the Wisconsin area, was elected in 1980.
• The denomination is one of the most ethnically diverse mainline churches, with nearly 1 million people globally from African, Asian, Native or Indigenous, Hispanic and Pacific-Island heritages.
• Official liturgies of the church are found in The United Methodist Hymnal (and their Spanish and Korean counterparts) and the Book of Worship.

The history of the United Methodist Church, like many denominations, is a story of division and coming together. The United Methodist Church was formed in 1968, with the union of the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church.

The Evangelical United Brethren Church had existed since 1946, when two U.S.-born denominations - the Evangelical Church and the Church of the United Brethren in Christ - came together. These two former bodies - along with the Methodist Church - were similar, particularly in terms of church polity and evangelistic zeal.

Who Were Our Founders?

The Evangelical United Brethren tradition is usually associated with two founding fathers. Jacob Albright, a lay preacher in eastern Pennsylvania, gathered a large following in the 19th century and organized the Evangelical Association (which would become the Evangelical Church). The Rev. Phillip Otterbein, ordained by the German Reformed Church, started the United Brethren movement in the late 1700s.

Meanwhile, the Methodist movement had begun in England in the mid- 1700s under John Wesley. A priest in the Church of England, Wesley himself never officially organized a separate denomination in England.

However, the movement he began took on a life of its own and spread to Ireland and the colonial United States.

In 1784 around Christmas, some 60 clergymen gathered in Baltimore and organized the Methodist Episcopal Church. (Episcopal referred to the church's administration by bishops.)

Ideology, Racism Sparks Divisions

In 1828, a Methodist group, moved largely by an insistence on lay representation (John Wesley stressed lay ministry and the "priesthood of all believers"), seceded to form the Methodist Protestant Church.

In 1844, the parent church split again over the issue of slavery, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was formed. The North and South factions reunited in 1939, but the compromise was a racially segregated denomination.

Along with the five geographic jurisdictions into which the U.S. church is still organized, an over-lapping Central Jurisdiction was formed for black Methodists, with its own bishops, newspaper and judicatories that often paralleled those for whites.

Legal segregation within the denomination was ended in 1968 with the formation of The United Methodist Church.