In reply to HumpitPuryear

HumpitPuryear said:

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So our discernment committee has announced that they have scheduled a church "vote to vote(or not)". We will have the option of ending discernment without a disaffiliation vote or request the DS schedule a charge conference to conduct a disaffiliation vote.

We are in the Rio conference. Has anyone heard of such a thing? I suspect it's a stall tactic by the left-leaning members of our discernment committee and/or pandering to members that just simply want it to go away.

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We took a straw poll to decide if we would hold a church conference to vote or not. Many reasons behind the decision, and for us it was not a stall tactic. You only get to vote to disaffiliate one time, so if you are borderline, and miss the mark, then your opportunity is gone under the 2553 rule. Another good thing about the straw poll was that it gave our members another time to prayerfully discern their position.

The conference also does not want to spend time and resources holding a church conference if the church knows the vote is not going to pass. At least in the Rio Texas Conference, the DS have spent a ton of time traveling to churches for meetings and if they can avoid another Sunday on the road counting votes then they certainly want to avoid it.

Just my $.02

In reply to OnlyForNow

OnlyForNow said:

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At the end of the period you either vote to disaffiliate or vote not to.

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Not exactly. You will either vote to disaffiliate, not disaffiliate, or abstain. A vote to abstain is a vote NOT to disaffiliate.

In reply to Martin Cash Ok. Sure, but there isn't supposed to be a second discernment period.

Another question for Rio Conference Methodists who have been through the disaffiliation process.

What other requirements did you have to meet before requesting a date with your DS for charge conference to have your disaffiliation vote? Our membership is ready to vote but our discernment committee is heavily weighted with progressives or weak members that won't standup for membership. We've had a lot of stalling. We are being told that we have to have an impact statement written before we can schedule a date with the DS. I don't see anything like that in the standard UMC process so I'm assuming that if it is a real requirement that it is something that Rio is requiring. I'm not opposed to having the impact statement available before the charge conference but it seems inefficient (purposely so?) to require that before even contacting the DS to schedule a meeting weeks from now.

In reply to HumpitPuryear

HumpitPuryear said:

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Another question for Rio Conference Methodists who have been through the disaffiliation process.

What other requirements did you have to meet before requesting a date with your DS for charge conference to have your disaffiliation vote? Our membership is ready to vote but our discernment committee is heavily weighted with progressives or weak members that won't standup for membership. We've had a lot of stalling. We are being told that we have to have an impact statement written before we can schedule a date with the DS. I don't see anything like that in the standard UMC process so I'm assuming that if it is a real requirement that it is something that Rio is requiring. I'm not opposed to having the impact statement available before the charge conference but it seems inefficient (purposely so?) to require that before even contacting the DS to schedule a meeting weeks from now.

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We voted to disaffiliate last Sunday. 77% in favor. I'm unaware of any such requirement. Don't even know what an impact statement means. Maybe when they calculate the ransom you have to pay.

In reply to Martin Cash I think that's right. But that's not the order of operations, you're not supposed to base disaffiliatation with cost.

In reply to Martin Cash

Martin Cash said:

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HumpitPuryear said:

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Another question for Rio Conference Methodists who have been through the disaffiliation process.

What other requirements did you have to meet before requesting a date with your DS for charge conference to have your disaffiliation vote? Our membership is ready to vote but our discernment committee is heavily weighted with progressives or weak members that won't standup for membership. We've had a lot of stalling. We are being told that we have to have an impact statement written before we can schedule a date with the DS. I don't see anything like that in the standard UMC process so I'm assuming that if it is a real requirement that it is something that Rio is requiring. I'm not opposed to having the impact statement available before the charge conference but it seems inefficient (purposely so?) to require that before even contacting the DS to schedule a meeting weeks from now.

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We voted to disaffiliate last Sunday. 77% in favor. I'm unaware of any such requirement. Don't even know what an impact statement means. Maybe when they calculate the ransom you have to pay.

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Congrats on keeping your church. It's a Rio thing apparently. They want the church considering disaffiliation to compete a discernment assessment. It has to go to the DS and the church membership. We paneled a committee to manage us through the discernment process which would logically include drafting the assessment. But our preliminary vote went against the progressives and we now have an activist member of our committee that's basically the equivalent of an ecoterrorist that's sitting in the middle of the road with her hand superglued to the pavement. Not clear at this point if the committee is going to be able to make any progress on issuing the assessment. Membership is looking into ways to bypass this.

I was just curious how other churches produced their assessment, who approved it, etc.

In reply to HumpitPuryear how can 1 member hold the committee hostage?

Update - Our North GA UMC voted 80+% to disaffiliate. Another nearby UMC also voted to disaffiliate closer to the 2/3 requirement. My understanding is that these two churches are in the top 10 largest in the Conference. Given that it took a lawsuit to overturn the "pause" in disaffiliations that the previous bishop enacted due to "misinformation", I will not be surprised if the UMC votes to not approve the disaffiliations at the upcoming Conference vote in November. After the initial disaffiliations were approved by a 90+% vote, the most recent ones submitted before the "pause" were approved by only a 55%/45% split.

Another North GA Conference UMC southwest of Atlanta fell just short of the threshold to disaffiliate. The Sunday after the vote, the District Supt and Conference Bishop were in attendance for worship where one of the staff members announced that the Sr Pastor had been put on administrative leave and was forbidden from having contact with any members. In my opinion, this was retaliation by UMC leadership for the pastor not controlling his church and that disaffiliation came to a vote. The following Sunday, 200+ members, including most of the "doers" and givers at this UMC, voted with their feet, formed a new church, and met in the gym of a local Baptist church. A few weeks later, this new church hired the former Sr Pastor of the UMC and attendance continues to grow.

It is expected that ~350 of ~750 total UMC churches in the N GA conference will disaffiliate.

In reply to TheRatt87

TheRatt87 said:

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Update - Our North GA UMC voted 80+% to disaffiliate. Another nearby UMC also voted to disaffiliate closer to the 2/3 requirement. My understanding is that these two churches are in the top 10 largest in the Conference. Given that it took a lawsuit to overturn the "pause" in disaffiliations that the previous bishop enacted due to "misinformation", I will not be surprised if the UMC votes to not approve the disaffiliations at the upcoming Conference vote in November. After the initial disaffiliations were approved by a 90+% vote, the most recent ones submitted before the "pause" were approved by only a 55%/45% split.

Another North GA Conference UMC southwest of Atlanta fell just short of the threshold to disaffiliate. The Sunday after the vote, the District Supt and Conference Bishop were in attendance for worship where one of the staff members announced that the Sr Pastor had been put on administrative leave and was forbidden from having contact with any members. In my opinion, this was retaliation by UMC leadership for the pastor not controlling his church and that disaffiliation came to a vote. The following Sunday, 200+ members, including most of the "doers" and givers at this UMC, voted with their feet, formed a new church, and met in the gym of a local Baptist church. A few weeks later, this new church hired the former Sr Pastor of the UMC and attendance continues to grow.

It is expected that ~350 of ~750 total UMC churches in the N GA conference will disaffiliate.

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You guys need to be prepared to walk if Conference doesn't allow you guys to go in November….Our church has grown in membership and energy since we left the UMC last year…

In reply to TheRatt87 This is the way!

In reply to 88Warrior

88Warrior said:

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TheRatt87 said:

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Update - Our North GA UMC voted 80+% to disaffiliate. Another nearby UMC also voted to disaffiliate closer to the 2/3 requirement. My understanding is that these two churches are in the top 10 largest in the Conference. Given that it took a lawsuit to overturn the "pause" in disaffiliations that the previous bishop enacted due to "misinformation", I will not be surprised if the UMC votes to not approve the disaffiliations at the upcoming Conference vote in November. After the initial disaffiliations were approved by a 90+% vote, the most recent ones submitted before the "pause" were approved by only a 55%/45% split.

Another North GA Conference UMC southwest of Atlanta fell just short of the threshold to disaffiliate. The Sunday after the vote, the District Supt and Conference Bishop were in attendance for worship where one of the staff members announced that the Sr Pastor had been put on administrative leave and was forbidden from having contact with any members. In my opinion, this was retaliation by UMC leadership for the pastor not controlling his church and that disaffiliation came to a vote. The following Sunday, 200+ members, including most of the "doers" and givers at this UMC, voted with their feet, formed a new church, and met in the gym of a local Baptist church. A few weeks later, this new church hired the former Sr Pastor of the UMC and attendance continues to grow.

It is expected that ~350 of ~750 total UMC churches in the N GA conference will disaffiliate.

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You guys need to be prepared to walk if Conference doesn't allow you guys to go in November….Our church has grown in membership and energy since we left the UMC last year…

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If the Conference doesn't approve the disaffiliation votes, then the churches will file another lawsuit, similar to the lawsuit that 186 N GA churches filed after the bishop enacted the "pause". In that suit, the court ruled that the churches could continue the disaffiliation process as outlined in Paragraph 2553.

I could be shocked and the Conference could approve the disaffiliation votes, but given that N GA UMC leadership has acted in bad faith at every opportunity going back to the Mt Bethel UMC situation, I expect that it will take a lawsuit.

In reply to TheRatt87

TheRatt87 said:

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88Warrior said:

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TheRatt87 said:

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Update - Our North GA UMC voted 80+% to disaffiliate. Another nearby UMC also voted to disaffiliate closer to the 2/3 requirement. My understanding is that these two churches are in the top 10 largest in the Conference. Given that it took a lawsuit to overturn the "pause" in disaffiliations that the previous bishop enacted due to "misinformation", I will not be surprised if the UMC votes to not approve the disaffiliations at the upcoming Conference vote in November. After the initial disaffiliations were approved by a 90+% vote, the most recent ones submitted before the "pause" were approved by only a 55%/45% split.

Another North GA Conference UMC southwest of Atlanta fell just short of the threshold to disaffiliate. The Sunday after the vote, the District Supt and Conference Bishop were in attendance for worship where one of the staff members announced that the Sr Pastor had been put on administrative leave and was forbidden from having contact with any members. In my opinion, this was retaliation by UMC leadership for the pastor not controlling his church and that disaffiliation came to a vote. The following Sunday, 200+ members, including most of the "doers" and givers at this UMC, voted with their feet, formed a new church, and met in the gym of a local Baptist church. A few weeks later, this new church hired the former Sr Pastor of the UMC and attendance continues to grow.

It is expected that ~350 of ~750 total UMC churches in the N GA conference will disaffiliate.

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You guys need to be prepared to walk if Conference doesn't allow you guys to go in November….Our church has grown in membership and energy since we left the UMC last year…

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If the Conference doesn't approve the disaffiliation votes, then the churches will file another lawsuit, similar to the lawsuit that 186 N GA churches filed after the bishop enacted the "pause". In that suit, the court ruled that the churches could continue the disaffiliation process as outlined in Paragraph 2553.

I could be shocked and the Conference could approve the disaffiliation votes, but given that N GA UMC leadership has acted in bad faith at every opportunity going back to the Mt Bethel UMC situation, I expect that it will take a lawsuit.

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True. We were fortunate in Oklahoma that senior leadership for the OK Conference was generally very easy to work for congregations wanting to leave….There was no roadblocks for those who went through the process…

Here is a study of disaffiliating churches y'all may find useful:
https://www.umnews.org/en/news/study-shows-shift-in-disaffiliations

" Lewis Center identified 6,155 churches that disaffiliated between 2019 and the end of June 2023 a tripling since the end of last year. UM News is doing its own count and shows 6,225 disaffiliations, including some since June."

"In its first study, the Lewis Center found that 84% of departed churches were from two of the five U.S. jurisdictions Southeastern and South Central."

"But the new study, drawing on the larger pool of disaffiliations, shows those two jurisdictions now account for 70%."

"The North Central, Northeastern and Western jurisdictions together had just 16% of church disaffiliations at the end of 2022. But the new study shows those three now make up 30%, with North Central by itself accounting for 18%."

"That reflects big numbers of disaffiliations in certain North Central conferences in 2023, including West Ohio (172), East Ohio (237) and Indiana (174)."

In reply to UTExan Percentage of churches doesn't mean anything to me the publishers of this data should provide a rough estimate of number of people (and their giving).

In reply to HumpitPuryear

HumpitPuryear said:

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Another question for Rio Conference Methodists who have been through the disaffiliation process.

What other requirements did you have to meet before requesting a date with your DS for charge conference to have your disaffiliation vote? Our membership is ready to vote but our discernment committee is heavily weighted with progressives or weak members that won't standup for membership. We've had a lot of stalling. We are being told that we have to have an impact statement written before we can schedule a date with the DS. I don't see anything like that in the standard UMC process so I'm assuming that if it is a real requirement that it is something that Rio is requiring. I'm not opposed to having the impact statement available before the charge conference but it seems inefficient (purposely so?) to require that before even contacting the DS to schedule a meeting weeks from now.

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I am the chair of the Discernment Team at our church in the Rio Texas Conference. We have just entered the sixth month of discernment and our Ad Board just voted to request a church conference with the DS to vote on disaffiliation. The guidelines that were established by Rio Texas, Discerning Pathways, do require an Assessing the Impact report during discernment. It is supposed to be presented to the DS and to the church membership. I wrote the report and presented it at our second Listening Session. It requires that the church considers the impact on the church, the community and the conference of their decision, one way or the other.

In reply to OnlyForNow

OnlyForNow said:

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Percentage of churches doesn't mean anything to me the publishers of this data should provide a rough estimate of number of people (and their giving).

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I have been trying to locate that data as well. There are disaffiliating mega churches and micro churches, TBH.

In reply to UTExan

UTExan said:

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OnlyForNow said:

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Percentage of churches doesn't mean anything to me the publishers of this data should provide a rough estimate of number of people (and their giving).

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I have been trying to locate that data as well. There are disaffiliating mega churches and micro churches, TBH.

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I haven't seen a tally of the number of people who have left … From a local perspective our 6000 member church voted 98% for leaving the UMC last year…

In reply to OldSchoolRdAg

OldSchoolRdAg said:

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HumpitPuryear said:

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Another question for Rio Conference Methodists who have been through the disaffiliation process.

What other requirements did you have to meet before requesting a date with your DS for charge conference to have your disaffiliation vote? Our membership is ready to vote but our discernment committee is heavily weighted with progressives or weak members that won't standup for membership. We've had a lot of stalling. We are being told that we have to have an impact statement written before we can schedule a date with the DS. I don't see anything like that in the standard UMC process so I'm assuming that if it is a real requirement that it is something that Rio is requiring. I'm not opposed to having the impact statement available before the charge conference but it seems inefficient (purposely so?) to require that before even contacting the DS to schedule a meeting weeks from now.

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I am the chair of the Discernment Team at our church in the Rio Texas Conference. We have just entered the sixth month of discernment and our Ad Board just voted to request a church conference with the DS to vote on disaffiliation. The guidelines that were established by Rio Texas, Discerning Pathways, do require an Assessing the Impact report during discernment. It is supposed to be presented to the DS and to the church membership. I wrote the report and presented it at our second Listening Session. It requires that the church considers the impact on the church, the community and the conference of their decision, one way or the other.

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Was there any review and approval process that you went through for the report prior to it being submitted to the DS?

In reply to HumpitPuryear

HumpitPuryear said:

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OldSchoolRdAg said:

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HumpitPuryear said:

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Another question for Rio Conference Methodists who have been through the disaffiliation process.

What other requirements did you have to meet before requesting a date with your DS for charge conference to have your disaffiliation vote? Our membership is ready to vote but our discernment committee is heavily weighted with progressives or weak members that won't standup for membership. We've had a lot of stalling. We are being told that we have to have an impact statement written before we can schedule a date with the DS. I don't see anything like that in the standard UMC process so I'm assuming that if it is a real requirement that it is something that Rio is requiring. I'm not opposed to having the impact statement available before the charge conference but it seems inefficient (purposely so?) to require that before even contacting the DS to schedule a meeting weeks from now.

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I am the chair of the Discernment Team at our church in the Rio Texas Conference. We have just entered the sixth month of discernment and our Ad Board just voted to request a church conference with the DS to vote on disaffiliation. The guidelines that were established by Rio Texas, Discerning Pathways, do require an Assessing the Impact report during discernment. It is supposed to be presented to the DS and to the church membership. I wrote the report and presented it at our second Listening Session. It requires that the church considers the impact on the church, the community and the conference of their decision, one way or the other.

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Was there any review and approval process that you went through for the report prior to it being submitted to the DS?

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There was no formal approval process. We have a discernment team that I reviewed it with to gain any feedback and to get their support when it was presented. When I presented it, the DS said that "I hurt his heart" with a couple of the assessments in the report.

In reply to UTExan

UTExan said:

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OnlyForNow said:

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Percentage of churches doesn't mean anything to me the publishers of this data should provide a rough estimate of number of people (and their giving).

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I have been trying to locate that data as well. There are disaffiliating mega churches and micro churches, TBH.

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https://www.churchleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Disaffiliating-UM-Churches-through-June-2023-report-20230801.pdf

Page 8

"Disaffiliating churches and all United Methodist churches tend to match in the sizes of congregations based on worship attendance cohorts. The percentages are not exactly the same in every size group but always very close to each other"

So, percentage of churches is actually a fairly good indicator of percentage of people. For now at least.

In reply to goatchze Does that mean it's gonna end up being a 50/50 split?

In reply to OnlyForNow

OnlyForNow said:

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Does that mean it's gonna end up being a 50/50 split?

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No, it means there's not a lot of bias for congregation size when it comes to who is leaving.

Whether the split is 50/50 or some other ratio will depend on the number of congregations that leave.

Right now, the number is about 6,000 that have been approved to leave. That is out of about 30,000.

In reply to goatchze 6,000 of the 30,000.


But 6,000 of the 30,000 had half the Methodist membership?

In reply to OnlyForNow

OnlyForNow said:

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6,000 of the 30,000.


But 6,000 of the 30,000 had half the Methodist membership?

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No. Click the link and go to page 8. It will make more sense.

In reply to HumpitPuryear

HumpitPuryear said:

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goatchze said:

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UTExan said:

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OnlyForNow said:

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Percentage of churches doesn't mean anything to me the publishers of this data should provide a rough estimate of number of people (and their giving).

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I have been trying to locate that data as well. There are disaffiliating mega churches and micro churches, TBH.

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https://www.churchleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Disaffiliating-UM-Churches-through-June-2023-report-20230801.pdf

Page 8

"Disaffiliating churches and all United Methodist churches tend to match in the sizes of congregations based on worship attendance cohorts. The percentages are not exactly the same in every size group but always very close to each other"

So, percentage of churches is actually a fairly good indicator of percentage of people. For now at least.

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I don't think this is actually true. Members aren't static after a decision.

It takes 2/3 of membership to disaffiliate and that skews the presumed membership of non-disaffiliating UMC churches. There are lots of churches where the majority want to leave but they didn't meet the 2/3 hurdle. I know of a church that recently voted. Majority clearly wanted out but they didn't meet the threshold. ALL of those traditionalist members left and are starting a new GMC congregation. A couple weeks after the vote they had over 100 in attendance with a borrowed pastor in a borrowed meeting place while the UMC church they left had 50 in attendance. I imagine that scene is playing out across the country. So if a church has 150 members and stayed UMC that doesn't mean 150 members stay in the UMC column. There's clearly going to be a migration of traditionalist members away from UMC to other Methodist churches or to other denominations or non-denominational churches.

UMC is going to be a shadow of it's former self and churches are going to be dissolved (with property being disposed of by UMC for $$$) and yet another Christian denomination will be severely scaled back from it's mission, which is of course the goal of global progressivism.

Catholics, y'all are next.

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That is all very true, but it will be impossible to know until well after the fact.

The opposite of what you describe also holds. My church barely cleared the hurdle to disaffiliate (less than 70% vote). We lost some members because of it. So the UMC congregation that became GMC was smaller, just like in your example the UMC congregation that remained was smaller.

Until the dust settles and all of the membership transfers are completed, it's going to be very hard to know the true numbers of people. It's hard already to know who was even UMC, because you can't simply look at membership rolls. That's why we always talk about "average attendance". We won't really know that for several years, although you might expect quick membership transfers to be indicative of regular attendees.

So you're left with the best gauge you can have at the moment, which is the number of congregations that are leaving.

In reply to goatchze Thanks! That helped a lot.

Went to college with FUMC Richardson's lead pastor's youngest daughter. We were in the same friend group my junior and senior year at TCU. I could have told you then that the church was going in the wrong direction as she helped out at multiple pride events in DFW. I actually asked her one time what her father thought of her participating in such events and she said her father supported the lifestyles of those in the LGBTQ community. This was 2014-2015 so sadly not surprised by this news.

In reply to Captain Pablo I hear the PCUSA has a new bible that is totally gender neutral. If you stay in the ELCA, PCUSA, and the UMC then this is the heresy you are getting.

But, I now go to a true Presbyterian Church with a real Bible. Leaving is the only way. They cannot be changed.