Our church officially dis-affiliates with the UMC at the end of this month. At that time all signage or items with the UMC Cross and Flame logo must go. The church can keep the hymnals. I find all this sad and tragic. And if there was another Wesleyan church near us that had a vibrant youth program we would probably try to find another congregation.
But here's the thing about this so-called UMC split: is it really a split? I saw on the Wesleyan Covenant Association Website recently that 2,000 churches have already dis-affliated with the UMC and they expect about 2,000 more to go through the process by the end of the year.
By the end of the year, by the WCA's projections, there will be 4,000 UMC congregations leaving the United Methodist Church.
So I ask again...is that really a split?
The UMC has over 30,000 congregations in the United States. 4,000 churches would represent less than 13 percent of the UMC.
4,000 churches leaving a denomination is a serious thing. No one wants to see that kind of division. But that's not that huge of a number in the long scheme of things. That's barely a split in my book. In my eyes a split is 50-50. I might give you 70-30. I might even say 20-25% leaving is a sizable split. But 13%? Debatable. This thing has been completely overblown by those seeking to leave.
And the so-called "Global" Methodist Church? They will be a pretty small denomination of 4,000 congregations. The GMC will be smaller than the denomination I grew up in, The Church of the Nazarene which has 5,155 congregations in the United States alone.
Of course, number of congregations is one thing, actual numbers of people is a different data point altogether. I'd like to see the numbers of people leaving before declaring a split.
It's all so sad and ridiculous. It's pretty obvious what this is all about. Politics, race and regionalism. 99% of the churches leaving the UMC are 97% white. The vast majority are in the south. Sure looks like a map of those who voted for Trump if you ask me.
