It’s about grabbing the property and endowments of the churches that are trying to leave.
I can understand that, but those properties just become a drain on the larger organization when they have no members. the 1-3% demographic they are catering to is certainly insufficient to fill the pews, so they are invariably going to be left with empty sanctuaries. Might as well figure out a way to peacefully and equitably allow those locations to transition the property to a local membership instead of trying to contest it. Especially when such empty churches can go years before someone buys them because they are in fact very expensive properties.
Bingo. While destroying Christianity from within.
“It’s about grabbing the property and endowments of the churches that are trying to leave.”
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Exactly right.
Bingo, we have a winner.
To split off, the congregation needs to have a super majority. My church voted by the slimmest of margins to remain: 42 leave and 22 to remain. So I doubt that the church will remain in a year. Well over half of the congregation have left and almost all of the people that actually do something, e.g. the church council, are gone. As such, the United Methodist Church will be able to sell a medium size church where the lot itself is worth about half a million dollars. There are plenty of other churches we can go to become new members.