Mississippi Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church

2008 General Conference Web site

General Conference, the top policy-making body of The United Methodist Church, meets every four years. General Conference is the only body that officially speaks for the 11.5-million member denomination.

The 992 delegates to the 2008 gathering are United Methodists elected by their annual conferences. An equal number of laity and ordained clergy represent each conference. A conference's representation is based on the number of lay and clergy members in the annual conference.

News
Highlights from General Conference Day 1

Mississippi delegation
Eight laypeople and eight clergy will represent Mississippi at General Conference:

Laity: Turner Arant, David Beckley, David Stotts, Bill Smallwood, Sara Hillman, Mary Ford, Jack Ramsey, Steve McAlilly

Clergy: Joe May, Bill McAlilly, Timothy Thompson, Sheila Cumbest, Ginger Holland, Mike Childs, Bryan Collier, Mattie Gipson

View delegate profiles

Learn online
Anyone wanting to learn more about General Conference and how it works can take a free five-session online course called "Exploring General Conference" through United Methodist Communications. To register, visit http://training.umcom.org.

Multimedia resources
Significant multimedia resources related to the 2008 General Conference are available online at www.GC2008.umc.org.

Among them are live streaming (audio and video), articles on the events and actions of General Conference, and video and audio recordings of panel discussions from the Pre-General Conference News Briefing, held in January in Fort Worth.

All proposed legislation is available on www.GC2008.umc.org. Click on "Legislative Tracking."

The January-February issue of Interpreter Magazine, the denomination's official ministry magazine, focused on the 2008 meeting and featured stories on how previous General Conference sessions have shaped The United Methodist Church. The articles are available at www.interpretermagazine.org.