Grace Church is part of a worldwide connection of Christian churches (a denomination) called the United Methodist Church.

We belong to the Carlisle Cluster of United Methodist churches. The churches of our Cluster and the other Clusters in our area form the New Cumberland District.  Each District is led by a District Superintendent.  Our District Superintendent is Marlin Snider (a former Senior Pastor of Grace Church).

The churches of our District and the other Districts in the central part of Pennsylvania (from the New York border to the Maryland Border) form the Susquehanna Conference.  Each Conference is led by a Bishop.  Our Bishop is Jane Allen Middleton.

The Bishop, in consultation with the District Superintendents, appoints Pastors to serve each of the churches in the Conference.

The churches of our Conference and all the other Conferences from around the world form the United Methodist Church.  Delegates from all the Conferences meet once every four years for a General Conference.  The General Conference is the only official voice of the United Methodist Church as a whole.  The last General Conference was in 2004, and the next one will be in 2008.  The principles, policies and rules approved by each General Conference are printed in a book called The Discipline.

Our connection with other Churches around the world benefits us and them in many ways.  We can often share resources to assist each other, and we can better reach the world for Christ working as a team.  For example, United Methodist Churches band together to provide large scale disaster relief around the globe, something that would be very difficult for any church working alone to acheive.   And United Methodist churches with abundance provide blessings of support and resources to churches and missionaries struggling to offer the hope of Christ in poverty-stricken areas from rural Appalachia to Africa and beyond.