The 2023 Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference will reconvene in a Special Session on Saturday, September 9, from 9:00 am-12:30 p.m., at Lititz United Methodist Church, 201 Market St., in Lititz, PA. The session will continue to celebrate the 2023 Annual Conference theme Possibility.

For information, an agenda and updates, visit our 2023 Special Session web page.

Members can now register for the Special Session until August 30. The registration fee is $25, to help defray costs. Members should register by this deadline and bring their registration credentials with them.

Only limited seating will be available onsite, most of it restricted to voting members. However, the full session will be viewable via livestream video on EPA’s website. 

The special session is called according to The Book of Discipline, ¶603.5, to act on the following legislation.

1. 2024 budget legislation to be presented by the Council on Finance and Administration (CFA). The budget resolution can be found in the 2023 Annual Conference Pre-Conference Workbook Addendum on the 2023 Special Session web page.
2. A recommendation by CFA including, but not limited to, a new Funds Management Policy. (Also included in the 2023 Annual Conference Pre-Conference Workbook Addendum.)
3. An update on EPA listening sessions by the Extended Cabinet and Connectional Table.
4. As time permits, four resolutions that were not acted on at the May 2023 Annual Conference session. These items can be found in the May Annual Conference’s Pre-Annual Conference Workbook.   
5. A resolution relating to Jury Justice [Page 98]
6. A resolution relating to a Human Trafficking Study [Page 99] 
7. A resolution relating to Support for Creating a US Regional Conference [Page 101]
8. A resolution relating to a Revised 2023 Process and Terms for EPA Congregations Seeking to Disaffiliate. [Page 103].

Members pre-register for Special Session by August 30

Members are urged to pre-register online for the Special Session and to bring their registration credentials with them. Limited onsite registration will be available from 8 to 9 a.m.

The session will open at 9 a.m. with praise and worship and a greeting by Presiding Bishop John Schol. The Rev. Jacqueline Tilford, Conference Secretary, will give organizing instructions.      

Irene Dickinson, President of the Council on Finance and Administration, and Jo Fielding, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer, will update the session on the proposed 2024 Consolidated Budget and the new Fund Management Policy first presented to the regular session in May. Members will vote on these resolutions separately.

An update on summer listening sessions conducted by Bishop Schol and Extended Cabinet members will briefly share questions, responses and learnings about EPA’s strategic “mission, direction, resourcing and affiliation.” The session will end with worship and Holy Communion. It will adjourn by 12:30 p.m.

Watch the new video series Mission in Motion

A new, three-episode video series, titled Mission in Motion, is available now to help conference members learn about the proposed 2024 budget legislation. Watch the three videos—which total about 5 minutes—on EPA’s YouTube channel.

CFA President Irene Dickinson and EPA Treasurer/CFO Jo Fielding present overviews and rationales for the new, more comprehensive Consolidated Budget and a new Fund Management Policy. Both are unprecedented in EPA.

Fielding defines designated and restricted funds. She also explains EPA’s stewardship responsibility and process for managing funds received by the annual conference and why a fund management policy is needed as both a best practice and a disciplinary mandate.

She further explains EPA’s recent “experiment of affiliation” initiated in late 2022 to address staff shortages and create more administrative and program efficiency through mutual collaboration with the Greater New Jersey Conference.

Learn more. Watch Mission in Motion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9WHm4XChBk&list=PL1CibM8JkpIILYXkk1c6HFz7Jlyjt3M6H)