While the vast majority of United Methodists go about the routines of daily life and worship, pray, study, and serve with their local churches, some prepare to monitor or participate in the May 2020 General Conference. With heightened interest and perhaps some dread, we’ve read more news articles than usual raising big questions about United Methodism’s future. 

As United Methodists with contrasting views advocate for dissimilar outcomes in May, Circuit Rider asked several to share information and insights about what they foresee and hope for. Writers with special experience and perspectives offer their analysis and prescriptions in the articles that follow. Given the breadth and weight of the articles compiled for this issue, you will find an option to download the full issue at the bottom of any article therein, including this one. For a visual comparison of each proposal, the download includes a chart courtesy of Ask The UMC, a ministry of United Methodist Communications. You can view the chart online here.

Whether you resonate with a writer’s assessments or strenuously disagree, an empathetic spirit will help all of us enter, for just a moment, into the thinking, convictions, and aspirations of Christian friends as we discern what God is calling us to be and do as United Methodist people. May we have ears to hear, eyes to see, and hearts to love.

Editor's Note: Given the proximity of the announcement of the "Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation" to this issue's publication date, many articles were prepared prior its release. Circuit Rider then obtained articles written to comment specificially on the Protocol and its potential effects on the General Conference proposal landscape. Authors of earlier submissions were then given the opportunity to amend their pieces or note that submissions were written before the Protocol's release.