Methodists: The Challenge of Fortune

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∙ECUMENISM. Although it is traditionally wary of church-union proposals, the Methodist Church is almost ready to approve a formal merger with the 756,600-member Evangelical United Brethren, who are German in origin but close to the Methodists in doctrine and discipline. The conference will consider a proposal that the merger should be carried out in stages during the next twelve years, but it faces a sharp conference-floor fight. Some younger ministers believe that the timetable for union is too slow, while Southern Methodists are wary of the Midwest-centered Brethren's adding numerical strength to the church's Northern majority. Kennedy personally deplores the proposal to call the merged denominations the United Methodist Church. "We have spent more than a century getting rid of adjectives," he says.

∙DISCIPLINE. The world will never be saved by organization, but it will never be saved without it, Methodists like to say. The church probably has more boards, committees and jurisdictions than any other U.S. denomination—and it spends endless hours tinkering with its ecclesiastical machinery. Scheduled for discussion at this year's conference are such problems as a reorganization of the big Board of Missions, a proposal to combine the deaconate and the ministry into a single order, a recommendation that bishops be allowed to move from one jurisdiction to another.