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Full Membership of the Ordained

© Susan Padezanin

To be a member in full connection is the normative status for the United Methodist deacons and elders, and the great majority of local churches are served by pastors who hold this relationship. Election to full membership qualifies the candidate to be ordained a deacon or elder. Full membership brings with it full voting rights in the annual conference, and responsibility along with the other members in full connection for all matters of ordination, character, and conference relations of clergy. The 1996 General Conference voted to allow laity to who serve on the board of ordained ministry to also be able to vote on clergy members. For the first time, the member becomes eligible to be elected a delegate to General, jurisdictional, or central conference.

In order to arrive at this point, the clergyperson completed his or her education, was a probationary member, and served full-time under episcopal appointment under the supervision of a district superintendent for three years following seminary graduation. Some annual conferences may provide for a longer period of service under a superintendent. It should be again pointed out that this provision is not operative in many annual conferences that have adopted a seminary rule requiring the basic seminary degree for any candidate for full membership; and even where a conference has no such rule, the provision of a non-seminary route to full membership is clearly intended to be for the genuinely exceptional case and thus should rarely be invoked.

The candidate for full membership is further required to satisfy the board as to his or her physical, mental, and emotional health. It should be mentioned that most boards of ordained ministry regularly employ psychological testing in the candidate's progress. Such testing is often an extremely use aid in helping the board make its decisions concerning the candidates; but should be just that--an aid--not the determining factor.

The candidate for elder must also take a doctrinal examination. In this connection, it is safe to say that most boards of ordained ministry are not so much interested in the various shades of theological opinion reflected in the answers as they are in seeing how well the candidate wrestles with the question and grasps essentials of the issues.

The final step into full membership occurs when the candidates appear before the annual conference and are asked by the bishop a series of questions first asked by John Wesley. The language of the questions is somewhat old-fashioned, but the meaning is unmistakable. Their directness is also blunt and brutal (e.g.,"Are you in debt so as to embarrass you in your work?").

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