2016 Wesleyan Discipline:General Conference: Equal ministerial and lay representation

325. General Conference Membership. The General Conference shall be composed of an equal number of ordained ministers and lay members elected by the several districts, and each district superintendent and a lay delegate elected on the district superintendent’s behalf; the presidents of the general educational institutions; such officers serving the General Church as the General Conference may establish by legislation, provided that it shall at the same time enact provisions to secure such further representation as shall be necessary to continue the principle of equal lay and ministerial membership. 360:3

(b) It shall not change or alter any part or rule of our government, so as to destroy the principle of equal representation of ministers and lay members in the representative bodies of the Church; or to do away with the right of each General Conference to elect its own officers, or the maintenance of an itinerant ministry.

1503. The General Conference shall be composed of voting and nonvoting members as follows:

Voting Members

(1) The voting members shall consist of an equal number of ordained ministers and lay members of The Wesleyan Church (2016 Wesleyan Discipline:325):

(a) The district superintendent of each district and provisional district and a lay delegate elected at the same time and in the same manner as the other delegates (2016 Wesleyan Discipline:1512-1526).

(b) One ministerial and one lay delegate elected by an established district for every seven hundred fifty members and major fraction thereof. The district superintendent and the lay delegate elected (2016 Wesleyan Discipline:1503:1a) shall be the representatives for the first seven hundred fifty members.

(c) The general officials of the Church as defined in 2016 Wesleyan Discipline:1800, the General Superintendents Emeriti, members of the General Board who are not voting members by some other right, the presidents of the general educational institutions (2016 Wesleyan Discipline:2365), the general directors of Hephzibah Ministries, Wesleyan Investment Foundation, Wesleyan Native Ministries, the Wesleyan Pension Fund, the Wesleyan Bible Conference Association, and such delegates-at-large as shall be necessary to maintain parity between ordained ministers and lay members (2016 Wesleyan Discipline:1508-1510).

Nonvoting Members

(2) The following when they are not voting members by some other right shall be seated as nonvoting members when present at the General Conference session: former General Superintendents and superintendents of developing districts (2016 Wesleyan Discipline:1015).

(3) The General Board shall designate the number of nonvoting members from mission units under the Global Partners Division, upon recommendation of the Executive Director of Global Partners.