But your congregation can only take this vote to disaffiliate at a “church conference,” scheduled by your district superintendent (DS). Most annual conferences are requiring disaffiliating congregations to take their votes long before the annual conference session, sometimes several months. The actual, effective deadline for congregations to act is much earlier. When the annual conference meets again in 2024, then ¶ 2553, by its own terms, “shall not be used.”Īnd time is running out even before May 2023. So if a congregation does not move in time to get its annual conference to approve its disaffiliation by May or June 2023, it will miss its last chance. I know of none that will have any special session later in 2023. annual conferences will have their regular sessions in May or June 2023. Annual conferences can only take such action by voting to do so, while they meet in session. The provisions of ¶ 2553 expire on Decemand shall not be used after that date.”īut what does it mean to act “in sufficient time”? One key, required, near-final step of ¶ 2553’s process is that any disaffiliating congregation must obtain permission from its annual conference. Sub-section 2 of ¶ 2553 states clearly: “The choice by a local church to disaffiliate with The United Methodist Church under this paragraph shall be made in sufficient time for the process for exiting the denomination to be complete prior to December 31, 2023. One key difference between this liberal-authored disaffiliation process and other, conservative-authored alternatives (and a reason why liberal-institutionalist delegates ensured that this Paragraph 2553 process was the one adopted) is that Paragraph 2553 only lasts for a limited time, now approaching its conclusion. It and other church-law changes made by that conference can be read in the 2019 Book of Discipline Addendum and Errata. That Paragraph 2553 has an explicit expiration date of next year! And in practical terms, congregations have less than one year-and in some cases as little as half a year-to use the one promoted pathway to avoid becoming permanently trapped in the UMC’s increasingly “woke,” liberal post-separation future (which will be very different from the UMC as we have known it).ĭiscipline Paragraph 2553 was adopted by the 2019 General Conference. (Although it is the Global Methodist Church that will allow them to remain in connection with a great many like-minded brothers and sisters now in the UMC).īut for leaving the UMC, our denomination’s Council of Bishops (in which power is becoming increasingly concentrated, at the expense of the UMC’s judicial and legislative branches) has “ affirmed by an overwhelming majority that paragraph 2553 in the Book of Discipline would be the primary paragraph used….” The reality is that if congregations can afford their annual conferences’ present disaffiliation terms but do not move soon to use this process, many will probably miss their last chance to get the best (or least-bad) deal they will ever be offered.Īfter separating from the UMC, congregations can take time, if they wish, to explore options for which other denomination, if any, to join. This also applies to non-conservative congregations who do not want to become forever locked inside the UMC. In fact, time is running out for United Methodists who do not want to be trapped in an increasingly impossible and unfaithful situation. But I am sorry to have to say that United Methodist conference officials claiming “there is no need to rush” to leave the UMC are usually not telling the full truth. ” The only way for your congregation to avoid being permanently trapped in such a denomination is to leave the United Methodist Church. This means that the UMC will be the denomination that keeps those bishops who deny the resurrection or sinlessness of Jesus Christ, and will be the denomination in which about half or more of its Americans will believe that “Jesus committed sins like other people. It is universally agreed that as we divide between the Global Methodist Church and the “Continuing United Methodist Church” that the former will continue the UMC’s moral standards while the latter will be more liberal. But many are not aware that time is running out for theologically orthodox or traditionalist United Methodists to continue in connection with like-minded congregations currently in the United Methodist Church, without losing their local church properties. More and more United Methodists are becoming aware of our denomination’s inevitable split and irreconcilable divisions over a range of deeper doctrinal and moral issues beyond same-sex marriage.
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