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The decades-long battle for the soul of the United Methodist Church (UMC) is now lost. A liberal faction has secured an increasingly hostile takeover.Christians outside of the UMC, please share this article with any Bible-believing United Methodist friends, to show the urgency of quick action. Please also learn from our mistakes.Theologically conservative United Methodists, we have a soon-to-expire, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lead our congregations out of a rapidly radicalizing, declining denomination without losing our church buildings, which are technically “held in trust” for the denominationSadly, some denominational officials and even pastors of conservative-leaning congregations suppressed information or actively misled...

An Alabama megachurch has voted to leave the United Methodist Church due to concerns over the apparent theological directionof the mainline Protestant denomination. Covenant United Methodist Church of Dothan, which has approximately 2,600 members, voted last week to seek disaffiliation from the UMC, with 406 present members voting in favor of leaving, 64 voting against, and four abstaining. Covenant UMC Pastor Kyle Gatlin told The Christian Post that major factors for wanting to leave included “the direction we saw the denomination was headed,” theologically. This included how some bishops were refusing to enforce the UMC Book of Discipline’s rules prohibiting...

Attendees participate in a special called session of The United Methodist Church North Texas Conference on Saturday, March 4, 2023. | Courtesy of the North Texas Conference Another 41 congregations in Texas have officially left The United Methodist Church in response to the mainline Protestant denomination's ongoing debate over its stance on homosexuality. The UMC North Texas Annual Conference held a special called session on Saturday in which clergy and lay members voted to approve the disaffiliation votes of 41 congregations that formerly belonged to the regional body. According to a statement emailed to The Christian Post by a...

The largest United Methodist Church in South Carolina announced plans to leave the mainline denomination over an ongoing debate on homosexuality in the church. According to the Post and Courier, Mt. Horeb United Methodist Church of Lexington, which has a congregation exceeding 5,000 members, started a discernment process earlier this week about leaving the UMC. "We are thankful a plan, path and price has been provided for traditional churches to consider separation from the denomination," the Rev. Jeff Kersey, the senior pastor of Mt. Horeb, told The Post and Courier. The church is affiliated with the UMC South Carolina Conference,...

The theological fracture within the country's largest mainline Methodist denomination has grown more contentious as a church conference in Georgia has temporarily blocked churches from disaffiliating. The United Methodist Church North Georgia Conference last week cited "misinformation" for its decision to "pause" any further disaffiliation efforts from congregations attempting to leave the denomination, according to a Dec. 28 email sent to member churches. The email claimed "many local churches have been misled about the disaffiliation process and have been presented with information about the process" and about denominational leadership "that is factually incorrect and defamatory."

More than 400 congregations in Texas have voted to leave The United Methodist Church amid the mainline Protestant denomination's ongoing schism over LGBT issues. Over the weekend, UMC regional bodies in Texas voted to approve the disaffiliation votes of hundreds of churches, with most planning to join the recently created Global Methodist Church. The total number of departing congregations includes 294 of the 598 churches belonging to the Houston-based Central Texas Conference and 145 of the 201 churches belonging to the Lubbock-based Northwest Texas Conference, reported The Dallas Morning News.The departing congregations constitute nearly half of all UMC congregations in...

Nearly one-third of the congregations belonging to a regional body of The United Methodist Church have left the mainline Protestant denomination amid its ongoing debate over homosexuality. At a special called session of the UMC North Carolina Conference Saturday, delegates voted 957-165 to approve the disaffiliation votes of 249 congregations seeking to leave the denomination. According to a statement from the North Carolina Conference, the number of departing congregations represented 32% of the regional body's member churches and about 22% of its membership. "The future is bright, especially because God has something to do with it," said North Carolina Bishop...

Over 100 congregations in Florida have sued a regional body of The United Methodist Church, believing they are not being given fair terms for leaving the second-largest denomination in the United States amid its schism over homosexuality. A total of 106 congregations filed suit against the UMC Florida Annual Conference last Thursday in the Circuit Court for the Eighth Judicial Circuit in and for Bradford County, Civil Division. A specific issue in the lawsuit is how the departing congregations are required to pay the conference a "sum of money" to retain control of their church properties. The complaint alleges that...

Fifty-eight congregations in Louisiana have officially disaffiliated from The United Methodist Church, as the second-largest mainline Protestant denomination in the United States continues to experience schism due to its ongoing debate over homosexuality. The UMC Louisiana Conference held a special session on Saturday, approving the votes of 58 congregations who decided by at least two-thirds vote to leave the UMC. The Rev. Todd Rossnagel, the director of communication strategies at the Louisiana Conference, told The Christian Post on Monday that the 58 churches came after nine other congregations had disaffiliation votes approved at the annual conference in June. Earlier this...

The leadership of a Texas megachurch has decided to leave The United Methodist Church without a congregational vote, which defies denominational rules on dismissal. St. Andrew United Methodist Church of Plano, which has approximately 6,500 members, recently announced that the church is going to disaffiliate with the UMC, the second-largest Protestant denomination in the country. "St. Andrew will disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church (UMC), but not affiliate with any other existing Methodist denomination. St. Andrew will remain Methodist with the same Wesleyan theology that we have always believed," the announcement reads. "St. Andrew will be named St. Andrew Methodist...

Will drag queens in the pulpit become "mainstream" in the United Methodist Church? That's what one Methodist critic is warning after a UMC pastor in Florida invited a man dressed in women’s clothing to preach a sermon with children seated next to him during a recent church service. Allendale UMC Senior Pastor Andy Oliver said he invited Isaac Simmons, who performs in drag as “Ms. Penny Cost,” to deliver the sermon on Oct. 2 because he wants “all people to see people like themselves called by God to preach the Gospel.” In a Facebook post, Oliver wrote that Simmons —...

More than 30 congregations based in North Carolina have threatened legal action so they can leave the United Methodist Church, claiming that the disaffiliation process is unfair to them. The Wesleyan Covenant Association, a theologically conservative network, announced earlier this month that over 40 churches in the Western North Carolina Conference are overseeing "pre-suit negotiation requests." The announcement comes as scores of theologically conservative congregations nationwide have left the second-largest Protestant denomination in the United States amid ongoing debate over the UMC's longstanding opposition to homosexuality and same-sex marriage. According to WCA, the Western North Carolina Conference "sent a legal...

A Texas megachurch has voted to disaffiliate from The United Methodist Church due to the mainline Protestant denomination’s ongoing debate over homosexuality as over 200 churches in the Lone Star State are considering disaffiliation.The Woodlands Methodist Church, a congregation with approximately 14,200 members located in Woodlands, Texas, voted on Sunday to leave the UMC Texas Annual Conference.According to an announcement from the church, about 3,000 members gathered at the church on Sunday and about 2,678 members — or 96.3% of those voting — supported disaffiliation.Senior Pastor Mark Sorensen posted a video on the church’s website saying that the vote affirmed...

Last year, the United Methodist Church accepted Isaac Simmons, who regularly preaches dressed as a drag queen under the name Ms. Penny Cost, as a candidate for ordination. Since that time, Simmons, who serves as an associate pastor at Hope United Methodist Church in Bloomington, Illinois, has challenged basic theological concepts, projecting a worldview where divinity rests not in God but in queerness. In a church preparing to split over LGBTQ issues, the drag queen pastor, who embraces queer theology while barely attempting to plaster on the basic tenets of Christian theology, has become a lightning rod. Conservatives argue that...

A staggering 107 United Methodist congregations based in Florida plan to leave the mainline denomination for the newly launched conservative Global Methodist Church. The Florida chapter of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, a theologically conservative Methodist group, announced Tuesday that 107 churches in the state had “chosen to initiate the process to depart the Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church.” The number of congregations planning to leave represents nearly 20% of the total number of churches belonging to the UMC Florida Conference. "This broad group of churches include both large and small congregations along with Anglo, African American, Latino, Korean,...

A prominent United Methodist Church bishop known for her outspoken theologically progressive stances has been placed on leave after two complaints were filed against her. Bishop Minerva Carcaño of the San Francisco Episcopal Area was placed on leave from her episcopal duties after the Western Jurisdiction College of Bishops received the complaints. According to an announcement by UMC Western Jurisdiction leadership released on Wednesday, retired Bishop Sally Dyck, formerly of the Chicago area, will serve as interim bishop for the time being. "Under church law, complaints regarding bishops are submitted to the president of the College of Bishops in the...

With humility, hope and joy, a 17 member body of theologically conservative Methodist clergy and laity, known as the Transitional Leadership Council, is pleased to announce the Global Methodist Church will officially launch on May 1, 2022.

Conservative congregations fear the denomination could eventually swing more toward progressives The Global Methodist Church, a new denomination of theologically conservative Methodists, will officially launch on May 1, a move that was expected for some time in the fight over full inclusion of the LGBTQ community. The issue of full inclusion has been brewing in the United Methodist Church for decades. In 2019, the denomination upheld and strengthened prohibitions against the ordination of non-celibate LGBTQ clergy and performing same-sex marriages.

In a move critics are calling “unwise and potentially destructive,” the United Methodist Church has delayed its General Conference meeting for a third time amid the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting theologically conservative United Methodists to announce the official launch of a new denomination. On Thursday, General Conference organizers announced they are postponing the meeting to 2024 “due to COVID-related and governmental policies/constraints.” The 2020 General Conference originally had been set for May 2020 in Minneapolis but was rescheduled for Aug. 29 – Sept. 7, 2021. It was rescheduled again for 2022 at the same venue. Commission Chairperson Kim Simpson said the...

The United Methodist Church is going to split. No one knows the exact contours of the split, but everyone seems confident that it is coming. There is a gulf between traditionalists and progressives in the UMC regarding same-sex marriage, and that gulf is widening: several Methodist bishops have performed same-sex weddings, defying official UMC teaching; and Karen Oliveto was elected as the first Methodist bishop in a same-sex relationship. At the root of these divisions is the fact that the UMC has always been made up of believers with distinctly different theological trajectories. The UMC was formed as an experiment...