Exactly.Quote:
we are not leaving our church. Our church left us.
BoDog said:
.... we are not leaving our church. Our church left us.
UTExan said:
Eurasian churches leaving en masse:
https://www.umnews.org/en/news/eurasia-and-estonia-begin-exit-from-church
And one UMC bishop has been suspended for over a year on unknown charges (highly unusual)
https://www.umnews.org/en/news/agency-seeks-role-in-complaint-against-bishop
And bishops are pushing back against the LGBTQ Disobedience agenda:
https://juicyecumenism.com/2023/03/16/united-methodist-disobedience-movement-abeyance/
Note the membership numbers for the Western Jurisdiction, which is from the Kansas-Colorado state line to Hawaii (including the fast-growing interior west and the coastal states). There are only 262,000 members with an average attendance of half that number in 1/3 of the country when Methodists were the first pioneers (Marcus Whitman, Jedediah Smith) and founded a flagship university (University of Southern California).
Draw a line on your map from El Campo to Austin, Then go from Austin to San Angelo and down to Del Rio. All points due South of that line is roughly the footprint of the Rio Texas UMC Conference. Most of those churches that leave UMC will be joining Mid Texas GMC Conference. Mid Texas website does not have a map like this one but they have a listing of churches that have joined. Mid Tex is going to have a huge influx once the Rio Texas churches join. It makes me wonder what will be left in the Rio Texas conference. My local church has sent in our application. We have not heard when our application will be approved. The GMC office told us they have received so many applications, there is a backlog getting them all processed.Fishing Fools said:
I like pictures.
Yes.MooreTrucker said:
The Northwest Texas conference is gone due to the large number of churches leaving. I hear that the remaining UMC churches will be absorbed by the Austin area conference. Is that this Rio Texas one?
Soooo different from our church. We never had a meeting with all the pastors until it was kind of forced on them, but even then it was an open church council meeting that was little publicized. We had the district superintendent speak, but no questions were allowed, and that was just to determine IF we would have a vote.SW AG80 said:
Our church in San Antonio met with all 4 pastors today. Each pastor announced they would leave the UMC regardless of the vote of the church. The Church Council announced their recommendation that Coker UMC vote to disaffiliate
More people were there at 4:00 than I have seen in church in a long, long time. Lots of applause when each pastor gave his reasons for disaffiliating.
Ours was exactly the same on the opposite side. People that haven't been to church in years, people that live elsewhere that came back specifically to vote to stay.XpressAg09 said:
A bit frustrating that Lakewood UMC (now Lakewood Methodist) in NW Houston had the pews packed for the disaffiliation vote. As in "Easter Sunday and you've never seen these people before" packed.
Now that disaffiliation has occurred we're back to normal attendance, which is roughly 50% occupancy in the Traditional services. I noticed that the Contemporary service is way down, as in, probably 33% of what it once was. This 66% drop was likely all the 'stay' votes that have since moved to Cypress UMC.
The Chicken Ranch said:
Those that stay in the UMC will have your version of this. We are so glad we have gone Presbyterian ECO and don't have to deal with this heresy anymore.
Once conservatives and moderates are eradicated from the UMC, they will hit the accelerator on stuff like this:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/liberal-mainline-church-body-urges-kentucky-governor-veto-bill-banning-trans-procedures-minors
Captain Pablo said:
and a convenient, catchy, blingy tithing app
XpressAg09 said:Captain Pablo said:
and a convenient, catchy, blingy tithing app
I do appreciate getting Miles for Jesus when I tithe via credit card though…checks are so last year.
MooreTrucker said:
We have a church like that here. Already well known as progressive. They didn't even bother to have a vote.
T dizl televizl said:
I'm a member at HPUMC and went to a meeting with the pastor a while back on this issue. Think there was probably 75 ish people at my meeting and they had a couple of them. So not like a one on one meeting.
Think his general take on it was to wait and see. It was a pretty intense deal with some women getting up and crying about how on Earth we could turn away from our gay friends and family. It was a little dramatic considering he had just spent a pretty good amount of time talking about how we accept all different types of sinners in the church. Just shows how emotional and serious some people are about this issue (either way really).
Anyway, not trying to derail there, but I definitely leaned to the guy next to me and said I'm glad I'm not the one having to get up there and talk.
Went back and looked and the date of the meeting was May 2022, so almost a full year ago. I haven't heard anything about it since. My impression at the time was that we could leave at any time, but maybe one of you all can clarify that for me. Seems like there is some info that the vote to leave would have to take place in 2023.
It really is. They ignore the "changing" theology stuff, and conflate "no gay clergy, no gay marriage" to "OMG NO GAYS ALLOWED FOR ANY REASON EVER!!! JUST LOOK AT WHAT THE AFRICAN CHURCHES ARE DOING!!!!"Fishing Fools said:
Nobody is turning their backs on Gay people. I've heard that same Drama Guilt trip BS before. This is the only thing they cling to. Sad.
DrZ said:
Man does not determine what action is sin. God does.
Man determines what is a against man's law.
The Bible tells us what action is sin. If we tell our brother that his behavior is not sin, then we are not helping him.
We are hurting him. The United Methodist Church is rewriting Gods word in order to fit in with the world.
This is not deniable.