United Methodist Church Connections

First United Methodist Church at Round Rock is connected to the world-wide United Methodist Church and hence to every other United Methodist congregation throughout the world. Many find the organization of the United Methodist Church hard to understand, especially those who come from another denomination. While the local church is where most of the ministry and mission of the church take place, each church understands itself to be accountable to all of the others.

Here are two on-line introductions to how the United Methodist Church is organized:

• A short text discussion with links to much more information is at Organization of the United Methodist Church.
• A short Flash Movie is at Organization Movie.

Most of the United Methodist congregations in Williamson County and the adjacent counties to the north are connected to each other to form the Temple District. Each district in the United Methodist Church provides training and guidance to the local churches. Several districts taken together form an annual conference, which is the basic organizational unit of the United Methodist Church. We are in the Central Texas Annual Conference. Although a bishop is the administrative officer for each annual conference, most decisions are made through the deliberations and voting of the conference delegates, made up equally of clergy and lay members of local congregations.

While there are bishops in the United Methodist Church, there is no archbishop. Rather, bishops are set apart (or consecrated) by jurisdictional conferences that are again composed of equal numbers of laity and clergy. We are in the South Central Jurisdiction. The world-wide mission of the church is supported by several General Boards and Agencies. The local churches, the bishops, and the general boards and agencies are all accountable to the General Conference, whose membership also consists of equal numbers local church lay members and clergy.