Governance
Main Street United Methodist Church is a long founded church in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, with a rich heritage of service to the community, the region and, in fact, the world.
The United Methodist Church has a wonderful, effective, interconnected methodology which permits, encourages and functions such that the local church, Main Street in this case touches lives in and around Waynesboro, Virginia, the United States, the American continent, and virtually all continents throughout the world.
The local church is governed by a “Church Council”, elected and representative members of the local church, charged with following the world-wide church protocols via our “by-laws” called “The Discipline of the United Methodist Church”. Church Council manages the ministries and organization of the local fellowship, including hiring of staff, establishing ministries which fit the universal themes of the UMC, and all the way to being a good citizen in Waynesboro. Annually, and on special called meetings, a Congregational Meeting receives reports from the local church and its members, presenting them to the “District” (for us, the Staunton District, composed of over a hundred individual UMC churches in this region).
From the District, annual meetings of the “Virginia Conference” are held, made up of all the districts in Virginia, representing, literally, hundreds of UMC fellowships throughout (for the most part) the Commonwealth of Virginia. From that, the General Conference encompasses the Annual Conferences.
See www.umc.org/who-we-are/organization-church-as-connection for our “connectional” approach and this link www.umc.org for more about the United Methodist Church, in general.
