The Exodus of the Methodist Church – is it happening locally?

By Publisher Shari Johnson

In a recent newsletter sent to the Ridgeview News from someone involved with the Wesleyan Covenant Association, (WCA) the Association wrote:

How many United Methodists have simply walked away from their congregation? That was the question raised in a recent conversation. A current United Methodist laypersonand business executive who has been observing not only the Great Separation of the denomination over the last couple of years but also the number of leaders in his own local church who have recently left, asked me, “Does anybody know how many United Methodists have just walked out the door?”

The answer is, “No.” It is likely not a number we can quantify with any level of certainty. But we do know, anecdotally, that it is significant. 

At a recent local event I was ask if I had heard that the Mt. Zion United Methodist Church was closing. I told the person that I had not, and then later received this newsletter causing me to wonder if it were true. I asked David Weaver, Pastor of the Mt. Zion United Methodist Church if what I had heard was true to which his response was “Mt Zion and Albert’s Chapel are not closing. We are in the process of pulling out of The United Methodist Church. We are seeking to become Independent churches if the United Methodist conference will allow.”

I said to another person the other day that I longed for Heaven when there would not be any denominations. When the people of God, who all say they serve one God, the Lord Jesus Christ, will be together in a worship service. I jokingly also have said that there are some people who God will have to place in a separate village, because they’ll just not believe who all is going to be there with them!

Over my many years in the ministry I have had the opportunity to speak and sing in multiple denominations. While I am Baptist, I do not enter another church with the intention of changing their mind on what they believe. I speak Jesus. I sing Jesus. If someone asks a question about the doctrine for which I stand, I share it honestly without reservation. But other than that, I leave their doctrinal education to their Pastor.

So let’s address why many of these churches are leaving the Methodist Conference.

Additional information from the WCA stated: We know the number of congregations that have disaffiliated through the UM Book of Discipline paragraph 2553 which concluded on December 31, 2023: that number is 7,631 congregations or about 26% of UMC congregations in the USA. Additionally,several hundred more congregations in a handful of annual conferences in the USA are ready right now to depart under the church closure provisions of paragraph 2549, pending a Judicial Council decision later this month on whether or not “church closure” can be used as a process for congregations to leave with their property if they choose to do so. If it is “not allowed”, I suspect many of those congregations will have the majorityof their members and leaders walk away anyhow. They have already decided that they would rather leave than stay in the UM denomination. A Judicial Council decision will not reverse their convictions or commitments.

A little over one quarter of the Methodist Church have already left with more hanging in the balance.

There was no mention in the newsletter as to the cause of what they referred to as “Methodist Diaspora.” Diaspora is defined as the dispersion or spread of a people from their original homeland. A very sad indictment.

I have family in another County who recently left the Methodist Congregation with several members of their church without any denial of why they were leaving. They stated flat footed and eye to eye it was because of the unbiblical behaviors of the organization by allowing and accepting the LGBTQ+ agenda into their church.

The hierarchical leadership have determined that they know better than God.

I once said that Homosexuality was unbiblical and the person I was speaking with asked me to prove it. And so I did.

Scripture clearly states:

Romans 1:26-32 KJV
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: [27] And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. [28] And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; [29] Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, [30] Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, [31] Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: [32] Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

You don’t have to be a theologian, bible scholar or a rocket scientist to read that and know what God means. God wrote the Bible in language that His people could understand. And when they actually read it, they understand that God said homosexuality was a sin. The preachers didn’t say it. I didn’t say it. God said it.

He also said that those who deny it will face judgement. I would venture a guess that is why the Methodist Conference is experiencing a mass exodus.

The WCA closed their newsletter with the following:

This season of United Methodism’s Great Separation has been heart-breaking and challenging in so many ways, but it is, I believe, also the launching of a great wave of renewal and revival in the Jesus Mission. We are being sent, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, for the healing of the world in Jesus’ Name. Let’s not not settle for anything less.  Yours in the Matchless Name of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer!

It is my prayer, as a child of God, Publisher of the Ridgeview, Publisher of The Jesus Chick, that the wisdom and the Spirit of God prevail in the Methodist Church.

One Lord. Jesus Christ. The Way, The Truth and the Life. That’s where I stand. If He said it, it’s the truth. Man’s words should fall in line with the Lord’s, not the other way around.