Posted on 11/02/2023 8:15:32 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Who is left?
Liberal congregations
Small churches who can’t afford a pastor by themselves
Older, dying congregations
Churches with pastors near retirement
I've seen that first-hand with a UMC Methodist church that had IMHO a good pastor. Except that when this kind of issue was brought years ago, instead of siding with the members who wanted the church advocacy to go back to Wesley's holiness teachings, he sided with the loud and proud hedonists in the church who wanted the church advocacy to line up more and more with the Book of Democrats.
I believe the pastor made that choice because an old bitty threatened to create a scandal and mess up the pension he expected to soon start getting. I'm not justifying his choice. But I took it as a life lesson to not let myself be in a similar situation where all my eggs are in one basket that someone of worldly influence can disrupt with their intent to take down good people doing the Lord's work.
Dear leader Zelensky says “GOOD RIDDANCE to them and GIBS-ME-MO’-BILLIONS”.
Wise choices. Time to take a stand.
He was afraid that if he told the truth, his remaining members would head for the doors.
“...One of our storms is disaffiliation,” Palmer said”
No, the storm is you, “Bishop”. Satan’s servants infiltrating themselves into the clergy. Disaffiliation is the sheep seeking shelter from that storm.
It’s hard to have a religion based on a book when you don’t believe the book. Just write your own book or pick a different book. Methodists and others have been squishy for decades.
“But I took it as a life lesson to not let myself be in a similar situation where all my eggs are in one basket that someone of worldly influence can disrupt with their intent to take down good people doing the Lord’s work.”
Even if you get in that position, sometimes you have to say “to hell with the world” and put your trust in God. Man can wipe our your fortunes, but God may restore them.
A Parson is a traveling preacher. The Methodist Church has a system set up where it’s preachers move from one congregation to another every Four or Five years. Continuity in the policy’s of the Methodist church is hard to maintain when a preacher can come in and change things and then move along when the damage is done.
What do those that remain get for giving the groomer gang of pastors in power access to their children?
My Mom told me the churches that left the UMC had to pay a fee.
I found an article about it
https://www.umnews.org/en/news/exiting-congregations-face-hefty-price-tag
The storm is disaffiliation, but, does he want to address the reasons for disaffiliation??? Does he understand why disaffiliation is happening?
Our pastor didn’t even bring it up. It’s a 2 church circuit. One is old and dying but has money and the other is younger and more dynamic but has no money. Luckily, no cemeteries. My guess is that the UMC wished we would leave.
I think it depends on the bishop.
The Free Methodist Church (more conservative but small) should be talking merger with them.
“Nearly 100 congregations in Ohio have left the United Methodist Church amid the denomination’s ongoing debate over homosexuality”
What debate? There is no ‘debate’! The UMC is all-in on every degenerate sexual deviancy imaginable and anyone who objects is going to have to leave.
One thing that is obvious now is that the UMC is not a Christian denomination. Whatever it is, it is NOT Christian!
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