By Heather Hahn and Sam Hodges
Dec. 15, 2022 | UM News
Key Points:
- The United Methodist Church is completing its first big wave of church exits under a church law that allows churches to leave with property if they meet certain conditions.
- More church withdrawals from the denomination are to come before the disaffiliation provision expires at the end of 2023.
- But amid these losses, church members see signs of hope including lay-led efforts to “Stay UMC.”
Much is in flux in The United Methodist Church as 2022 draws to a close. What’s clear is that the denomination’s long, gradual numerical decline in the U.S. has accelerated due to local church disaffiliations.
Yet even as they mourn these departures, a number of United Methodists also see signs of hope and opportunities for growth in what is still the second-largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. and a global church with members spread across four continents.
Just as fire tempers steel, Council of Bishops President Thomas J. Bickerton said he sees the current struggles refining The United Methodist Church to be stronger in faith and sharper in mission and ministry.
“Are we going to be less than we were before? Yes,” said Bickerton, who also leads the New York Conference. “But that’s not a bad thing. I believe we are beginning to discover what it means to reframe and reset this denomination.”
No question the denomination is already undergoing significant change. As other Protestant denominations in the U.S. have done previously, The United Methodist Church is experiencing its own separation after decades of internal division about the role of LGBTQ people in church life.
So far, a UM News review has found that 2,003 churches in the U.S. have cleared the necessary hurdles under church law to leave the denomination with property.
That translates to about 6.6% of U.S. congregations withdrawing since 2019 when the church’s disaffiliation provision took effect. Many of the congregations that have left are small, but the denomination also has seen the departure of some megachurches. The withdrawals still leave more than 28,500 United Methodist congregations in the U.S.
Suffice to say, the vast majority of congregations are sticking with The United Methodist Church at this point.
...One thing is certain: The rising tide of disaffiliations has at least another year to go....
The number of disaffiliations has varied greatly by region, with conferences in the southern U.S. so far seeing the most church departures. Perhaps not surprising in a denomination whose history so closely aligns with that of the United States, the disaffiliation map is similar to the red-and-blue maps on Election Day — with the more conservative red areas seeing more church disaffiliations compared to the more progressive blue areas.
For much more history, background, analysis, and detail, visit the whole article here.