Churches leaving United Methodist conference in north Georgia face Thursday deadline
Numerous church congregations in northeast Georgia and across north Georgia reached a deadline on Thursday for disaffiliating with the North Georgia United Methodist Church Conference.
The North Georgia UMC Conference announced on Nov. 18 that it had ratified the disaffiliation agreements of 261 churches that informed the conference they were leaving UMC. Those churches were given a Nov. 30 date to complete all requirements for the disaffiliation.
The disaffiliations stem mainly from the issue of the ordination of LGBTQ members and the approval of same-sex marriage.
“I suspect at our next general conference in 2024, a much smaller denomination will approve the ordination of LGBTQ members and same sex marriage. But that’s my opinion,” University of Georgia professor of Religion and Native American Studies Jace Weaver said Wednesday.
Weaver’s church, Athens First United Methodist Church, will not disaffiliate.
“We have lost a number of members on the issue and they have gone to smaller churches,” he said.
“I see it in my own Sunday School class. They assumed correctly that First Methodist was not going to disaffiliate and they felt strongly on this issue,” Weaver said about those members who left.
Among the churches in Clarke County that voted to disaffiliate were New Prospect UMC, St. James UMC and Young Harris Memorial UMC.
In Oconee, those leaving the UMC Conference include Bishop UMC and Rays UMC in Bishop.
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Across the United States, Weaver estimated about 6,000 congregations voted to disaffiliate, which he said constitutes about one-fifth of the UMC churches or 20%.
The UMC was officially created in 1968, according to its church history.
There are important decisions faced by these church congregations in coming days. Pastors must decide if they will stay with the disaffiliated churches or remain in the UMC Conference and the same holds true for lay members who would have to seek out other churches.
The Methodist church is different from churches such as Baptist and Presbyterians, according to Weaver, in that the conference owns the land where the churches sit.
“That has been a big stumbling block. They’ll have to buy those churches from the North Georgia Conference,” he said.
The disaffiliation will make the UMC church a smaller denomination, Weaver said.
“That’s a big hit to the budget of the national church,” he said.
The UMC Conference is also requiring each of these churches to send certain records to the Pitts Theology Library at Emory University in Atlanta, according to a document from the North Georgia conference.
Among those records are the disaffiliation document, written histories of the church, copies of any deeds, a photograph of the church building, and records pertaining to memberships, baptisms, weddings and deaths.
The UMC Conference also noted that churches will be responsible for hiring their own pastors and must remove the words “United Methodist” and the cross and flame symbol from the properties.
The disaffiliated congregations must initiate a change to the title of real property and must “turn in United Methodist hymnals.”
The decision to leave UMC affects many people in the Athens area. Among the other nearby churches leaving are Holly Springs in Jackson County, Jones Chapel in Danielsville, Elberton First, Greensboro First, Union Point First, Commerce First, Colbert UMC, Gordon’s Chapel in Hull, and several in Hart County including Liberty Hill, Macedonia, Providence and Redwine.
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Congregations leaving United Methodist face Thursday deadline
