The South Central Jurisdiction (SCJ) of The United Methodist Church was formed by the Uniting Conference of 1939 in Kansas City, Missouri. Jurisdictional conferences exist, among other reasons, to elect and assign bishops and to determine annual conference boundaries within the jurisdiction.
The jurisdiction includes 12 annual conferences and one missionary conference that span eight states: Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. The southern border of the Navajo Indian Nation in northeastern Arizona was placed in the SCJ by the 1968 General Conference.
The jurisdiction contains 10 Episcopal Areas presided over by 10 active bishops. There are 80 districts in the annual conferences of the SCJ. Approximately 1,830,000 United Methodists belong to approximately 6,400 local churches of the SCJ.
The three institutions most closely related to the SCJ are:
—Lydia Patterson Institute, El Paso, Texas;
—Mount Sequoyah Conference and Retreat Center, Fayetteville, Arkansas;
—Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.
Each of these institutions is supported, in part, by the apportionments that each annual conference pays to the SCJ.
The South Central Jurisdiction is governed by its Mission Council, which includes representatives from each annual conference.
Visit the South Central Jurisdiction website.
Bishops in the South Central JurisdictionRead more about the structure and organization of The United Methodist Church.
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