Top officials of the United Methodist Church have decided to postpone the next General Conference until 2021.
The meeting, which was scheduled to be held May 5 through May 15 in Minneapolis, was postponed because of coronavirus concerns.
A new date has not been set.
“As we looked at the complex issues that we will need to navigate to reschedule the event and the lack of options available, it does not appear feasible to plan for 2020,” Kim Simpson, chair of the Executive Committee of the Commission on the General Conference, said in a press release. “These issues include the undetermined length of the pandemic, uncertainty around travel bans in different areas of the world, delays in processing visas due to government and business closures and other questions.”
The meeting would have drawn more than 800 delegates from around the world.
Most likely, the new event will be held at the Minneapolis Convention Center, which was the site of the planned 2020 conference.
The Minneapolis Convention Center notified the denomination’s executive committee on the General Conference that the venue was restricting events through May 10.
Government and health officials had recommended postponing or canceling events of 50 or more people because of the spread of the coronavirus.
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