Christianity • Protestantism An annual conference is a regional decision-making body within various Methodist denominations.
With regard to the membership of Annual Conferences of the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection, the 2014 Book of Discipline states:[1] The voting membership of the conference shall include the following: all elders on the stationed, reserve, and superannuated lists; all conference preachers elected to elders’ orders; all conference preachers serving as pastors of organized Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist churches; lay delegates elected by organized Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist churches as provided in The Discipline.
Annual Conferences in the EWC are invested with the responsibility of reviewing candidates for holy orders.
[2] ¶200 of The Book of Discipline of the Free Methodist Church states that:[3] Annual conferences are the normative Free Methodist organization at the regional level that provides for reasonable spans of care for ministers and congregations, as well as the structure for effective kingdom expansion.
Numerous United Methodist Congregations voted to disaffiliate from their UMC Annual Conferences and affiliate with the GMC.
Also all the diaconal ministers, home missioners and the deaconesses under Episcopal appointment are lay members.
In the US, this is often a precursor to a reorganization or combining of multiple Annual Conferences into one due to churches closing or disaffiliating.