Church in Spur was among more than 140 churches to officially disaffiliate from the denomination during a specially called annual conference Saturday, Dec. 3.
The Northwest Texas Annual Conference, the governing body of approximately 200 United Methodist churches across West Texas, approved a motion allowing the churches to formally exit the denomination during the session at LakeRidge UMC (which has now changed its name on its website to LakeRidge Methodist Church) in Lubbock.
“All of the disaffiliating churches were voted on together,” Jeff Fisher, director of transitional ministries for the conference office, said. “That was always the idea from the beginning to avoid scrutinizing individual churches.”
The borders of the local annual conference include an area that runs north to the top of the Panhandle, west to the New Mexico border, south to Midland and Big Spring along Interstate 20 and east to Abilene. Since June, local churches have spent months discerning their path forward and whether to hold a disaffiliation vote.
“I’ve visited a number of our churches, and it has been a completely wonderful experience,” Fisher said. “Everyone has been cooperative, nice, cordial. It has always been the philosophy of our annual conference that God is calling each and every church in a unique way. There was a time for discernment, for stopping and being still and then acting on the way God was leading them.”
According to information from the conference office, 145 United Methodist churches have held church conferences and voted to disaffiliate. Saturday’s vote was the final step in the process. Exiting churches will no longer be part of the UMC as of 11:59 p.m. Dec. 31.
The Spur church is among 43 leaving the Lubbock district. Departing churches have several options available, including joining another denomination or deciding to become an independent church. A number of the West Texas churches have chosen to affiliate with the Global Methodist Church, a new denomination that launched May 1.
“We have certified by letter that all of the disaffiliating churches have met all the requirements and procedures that were drafted by our conference board of trustees,” Fisher
According to published reports, the United Methodist Church has been facing a possible schism for decades, although it has become more pronounced recently. At the center of the debate are matters of human sexuality, specifically hosting and officiating same-sexweddingsand ordination of gay clergy.
The issues were expected to be primary topics of discussion at the denomination’s General Conference in 2020, but that gathering, which occurs every four years and establishes the denomination’s policy, has been postponed several times because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The UMC recently announced the next General Conference is now scheduled to begin April 23, 2024, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In the meantime, UM congregations across the country have been trying to decide between remaining affiliated with the denomination or leaving. Churches voting to leave were required to have at least two-thirds of their professing members vote in favor of doing so. The December annual conference is the first of three deadlines local churches have to decide with other churches expected to exit the UMC at regularly scheduled annual conferences this summer or another special annual conference in December 2023.
The United Methodist Church was created in 1968 as the result of a merger between the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. It is a worldwide denomination that traces its roots to John Wesley, an 18thcentury Anglican priest. There are approximately 7 million United Methodists in the United States and about 30,000 UM churches, according to figures from the denomination.
Spur’s First United Methodist Church, which voted Sept. 27 to disaffiliate and later voted to join the Global Methodist Church, is among those expected to join the West Plains Conference of the new denomination when a convening conference is held in Lubbock in January 2023. Other churches nearby are also among those voting to disaffiliate as well.
Doug Hensley is a licensed local pastor currently serving a United Methodist Church congregation in Lubbock.
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