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Our congregation owns its buildings and hires its pastor.

Your buildings are held in trust for the Bishop and your pastor is apointed by the Bishop. Some local Conferences may put on the appearance of a more gentle Ecclesiastical authority.

Do not be misled. When the chips are down the local congregation has no authority, not even over its own budget.

I suggest you read the Book of Discipline on these issues.

I know the Book of Discipline well. There has been no interference or even input from the Bishop in our congregation’s decisions over budgets, pastoral (re-)appointment, building renovations, foreign mission expenditures or anything else. Yes, the Bishop “appoints” the pastor, and in the early 70’s I was “appointed” by then-President Nixon to a mid-level job in his administration. I think I still have the appointment letter, signed by auto-pen of course.

To say that the Methodist hierarchy resembles even remotely the centralized, authoritarian bureaucracy of the Roman Catholic Church (which I also know very well from my involvement with our daughter’s Catholic middle school) is to say that Churchill resembled Stalin because they were both men.