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).

UTExan said:

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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).

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Where are those numbers? I'd like to see if it's still only the Bible Belt that's resisting like we've been told or other parts of the country.

Here:

http://www.umdata.org/

The latest membership, attendance data is from 2021 from what I am seeing.

I like pictures.

can you post the same thing for the DFW area?

Fishing Fools said:

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I like pictures.

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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.

MooreTrucker said:

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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?

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Yes.

SW AG80 said:

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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.

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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.

It was painfully obvious what the sr pastor was determined to have happen, and the council chairman is a very milquetoast non-confrontational type who never actually too a stand at all.

So far only one assoc pastor has left, and that's all I expect to happen.

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.

Are you disappointed that the "stay" people are no longer attending? If that is why you are disappointed, What did you expect?

Or are you disappointed that the "leave" people aren't attending? If that is the case, all I can say is, yeah, everybody loves to watch a fight. And then when it's over, they just go home.

XpressAg09 said:

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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.

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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.

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

I think that's ultimately the goal. I have long believed that Satan placed a demon to lead the PCUSA. They are clearly biding the devil's work.

Fishing, where do you live?
Sounds much like the UMC church we belonged to in Swee****er.

Sweet water

Second part.

Captain Pablo said:

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and a convenient, catchy, blingy tithing app

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I do appreciate getting Miles for Jesus when I tithe via credit card though…checks are so last year.

XpressAg09 said:

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Captain Pablo said:

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and a convenient, catchy, blingy tithing app

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I do appreciate getting Miles for Jesus when I tithe via credit card though…checks are so last year.

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Good article in the Washington Examiner detailing reason for the Methodist schism:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-united-methodist-church-is-undergoing-an-increasingly-nasty-divorce

This was cross posted on F16 so I'm moonlighting over here and wondering if anyone knows how the big UMC churches in Dallas are going to vote or if they already have? I'm guessing they are staying since we are a Democrat city.

Our small UMC church has punted. I'm not sure how that's possible, but I'm also not educated enough on the topic to know any better (thus why I don't frequent this board). Our pastor flat out said we were just going to ignore it. Ok?

We have a church like that here. Already well known as progressive. They didn't even bother to have a vote.

MooreTrucker said:

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We have a church like that here. Already well known as progressive. They didn't even bother to have a vote.

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Well, the odd thing is that we aren't that progressive. As an example, our pastor is pretty focused on the current issue with men being emasculated in society and how we have to hold strong.

I'm guessing it's a function of size while having many choices (in Dallas) and we just can't afford to leave and hope to survive.

I expect UPUMC and HPUMC to stay.

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.

T dizl televizl said:

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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.

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In order to keep the church property/assets individual churches need to leave by the end of 2023 is probably what you're hearing.

DrZ said:

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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.

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nearly-200-churches-sue-to-leave-liberal-united-methodist-body-and-keep-property-amid-split-over-sexuality/ar-AA19v1pZ?li=BBnbfcL

186 North Georgia UMC churches suing to leave, citing deception and obstruction from the leadership of the conference.