A Pastor in North Carolina believes that one-third of the United Methodist congregations in the regional body will quit the denomination.
According to an organizer with a theologically conservative alternative to the United Methodist Church, nearly a third of the congregations in North Carolina may depart from the mainstream Protestant organization, according to a theologian.
The Global Methodist Church’s North Carolina organizer, the Rev. Jerry Lewis, predicted earlier this week that the UMC North Carolina Conference would lose at least 226 churches, according to The Carolina Journal.
Lewis, a church administrator for a Jacksonville-area Methodist community, said that 180 congregations had already chosen to quit the UMC this year, and around 80 more have told the GMC that they may do the same thing next year. The 260 churches would represent about a third of the 779 congregations that make up the regional organization.
Lewis remarked, “We’re thrilled by the overwhelming number in what we dubbed the first wave”. Given all they had to do to get to this point in such a short period of time, 180 in the first phase is quite astounding.
Lewis says that more than 150 of the 180 congregations that have already voted to leave want to join the GMC. The other churches can join the GMC, join another denomination, or stop being part of a denomination.
The Christian Post tried to get a response from the Rev. Jerry Lewis, but as of the time this article was written, he had not replied.
The North Carolina Conference and the Western North Carolina Conference are the UMC’s regional conferences that cover the whole state.
According to Aimee Yeager, the Western North Carolina Conference’s director of communications, 41 of the conference’s 990 churches have “already disaffiliated,” and another seven congregations are in the process of doing so.
Yeager said that seven churches held their church conferences to start the disaffiliation process. They’ll ask for permission at the 2023 Annual Conference, and they’ll petition. Beyond that, we are unable to predict how many churches may decide to sever ties in the coming months.
When it comes to disaffiliation, some of the congregations in the regional body, according to Derek Leek, director of communications for the North Carolina Conference, “are still in the voting process.”
“We had 784 churches when the year started. Three congregations closed, while two amalgamated with other groups. We now have 779 churches, ” said Leek.
The North Carolina Conference intends to “issue the official list before our special summoned session of the Annual Conference on Nov. 19,” according to Leek’s statement to CP.
The UMC has talked for a long time about whether to change its official stance against same-sex marriages and the ordination of gay people who are not celibate.
Many progressive leaders within the church often declined to implement the regulations, even though attempts to modify the criteria at the UMC General Conference had always failed.
Doctrinal conservatives made the Global Methodist Church official in May. This is a brand-new group that conservative UMC churches that are tired of the long-running controversy may join.
Since then, a significant number of churches in the US have decided to leave the UMC in order to connect with the GMC.
The UMC Bulgaria-Romania Provisional Annual Conference overwhelmingly decided to join the new conservative denomination in April, before the GMC was formally established. However, a subsequent decision by the United Methodist Judicial Council ruled that annual conferences could not quit the denomination.
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