“Not a real schism”: Four years later, UMC exodus less a gush, more a trickle
YONAT SHIMRON and EMILY MCFARLAN MILLER, of Religion News Service, report that an analysis of departing churches suggests the country’s second-largest Protestant denomination will be weakened, but it is unlikely to break…
In the US, South Carolina’s largest UMC church set to leave denomination
United StatesRNS South Carolina’s largest United Methodist church is gearing up to break from the denomination with a formal vote expected next month. Mt Horeb United Methodist, located in Lexington, South Carolina, about 27 kilometres from Columbia, the state capital, has for some time been inching toward a disaffiliation vote. For the past several years […]
In the US, UMC’s North Georgia Conference blocks church departures
United StatesRNS A regional body of the United Methodist Church in the US state of Georgia will temporarily block member churches from leaving the denomination, citing the spread of “defamatory” misinformation about the United Methodist Church and its disaffiliation procedure. In an email sent on Wednesday, the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church announced […]
United Methodists: Texas megachurch White’s Chapel departs UMC to anchor new Methodist ‘college’
BELYNN HOLLARS and EMILY MCFARLAN MILLER, of Religion News Service report on White’s Chapel United Methodist Church’s bid to become what co-pastor Rev John McKellar calls “a healing agent between all of Methodism”…
US Bishop slams “negative rhetoric” as conservative Methodists declare end to moratorium
United StatesRNS In his first official address as president of the United Methodist Church’s Council of Bishops, Bishop Thomas Bickerton of the New York annual conference called out conservative groups that are encouraging United Methodist churches to join a splinter denomination, citing divisive rhetoric and “accusations and statements that are just not true”. Bickerton accused […]
More than 100 Florida churches file lawsuit to leave United Methodist Church
United StatesRNS More than 100 churches are suing the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church to immediately disaffiliate from the denomination. The lawsuit comes amid a slow-moving schism in the United Methodist Church largely over the ordination and marriage of its LGBTQ members. And, according to the head of a new, theologically conservative […]
United Methodists: What happened to the proposal to split the denomination?
EMILY MCFARLAN MILLER, of Religion News Service, reports that before United Methodists could vote on the widely endorsed plan, traditionalists went ahead and launched a new denomination and several representatives of centrist and progressive groups revoked their support…
US annual conferences can’t just leave the United Methodist Church, rules top court
United StatesRNS No, an annual conference in the United States can’t just up and leave the United Methodist Church. At least not yet. While the denomination’s Book of Discipline has provisions for individual churches wishing to leave the United Methodist Church with their properties, there’s nothing within church law that would allow an annual conference […]
New denomination urges United Methodists to walk out of the wilderness
Garner, North Carolina, USRNS Fourteen United Methodists gathered in a sanctuary of a church on Saturday to watch a daylong broadcast of inspirational sermons from a group of Christians promising to lead them out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land. The 6th annual gathering of the Wesleyan Covenant Association was broadcast live from […]
In the US, Florida churches among first to begin exit from UMC to new, conservative denomination
United StatesRNS A statement posted on Facebook on Tuesday by the Wesleyan Covenant Association’s Florida chapter caught the attention of the Florida bishop for the United Methodist Church: “107 Florida Methodist Churches Depart United Methodist Church”, it began. The Facebook post came just a few days after the launch of the Global Methodist Church, a […]