Florida Methodist Conference to vote Saturday on potential exits of 55 churches

Gary White, The Ledger
·7 min read
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Tom Berlin, who took office in January as Bishop of the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, based in Lakeland, will oversee a vote Saturday on the possible departures of 55 churches from the denomination.
Tom Berlin, who took office in January as Bishop of the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, based in Lakeland, will oversee a vote Saturday on the possible departures of 55 churches from the denomination.

Less than a week after a judge declined to intervene, representatives of the United Methodist Church will vote on whether to allow dozens of churches to depart the denomination.

The Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church will hold a virtual special session Saturday to decide on requests from 55 churches to disaffiliate. The session continues a long-simmering rift in the denomination, based in Lakeland, over disagreements on doctrine.

Circuit Judge George M. Wright on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by 106 churches seeking to leave the Florida association. Wright, with the Eighth Judicial Circuit, based in Starke, cited the First Amendment and court precedent in ruling that he lacked the authority to intervene in a dispute between churches and a denomination.

Saturday’s session had been planned months ago and has no relation to the court ruling, said Tom Berlin, bishop of the Florida Conference. It will be the first of three planned sessions this year at which clergy and lay members of the conference will consider requests from churches to separate from the denomination.

While 106 churches joined the lawsuit filed in July, the list of churches seeking disaffiliation in Saturday’s session is just over half that amount. Bishop said that he isn’t certain if any churches have decided to remain within the conference or if the rest plan to pursue departures later this year.

The window for possible disaffiliation ends Dec. 31, Berlin said.

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“We've attempted to make it a process that is accessible,” Berlin said Thursday. “And as you can see from the change in that number related to the lawsuit, about half of those churches decided that the process Florida was using was fair and available.”

Three churches from Polk County joined the lawsuit: First United Methodist of Fort Meade, First United Methodist of Frostproof and Lake Gibson United Methodist Church in Lakeland. None appears on Saturday’s list, which includes two from Polk County, Alturas UMC and Dundee UMC.

Divisions over sexuality, gender

Berlin, formerly a pastor in Virginia, took office in January. He succeeded Bishop Ken Carter, who moved to a position in North Carolina after leading the Florida association for more than a decade. The Lakeland-based conference oversees more than 550 churches covering all of Florida except for the western Panhandle.

Berlin said that he expects the conference to vote on the requested disaffiliations as a group rather than on each church individually. Approval requires a mere majority of voters.

The format allows for speeches favoring and opposing disaffiliation, according to the conference’s information guide.

In discussing Saturday’s session, Berlin repeatedly cited paragraph 2,553 of the denomination’s 2016 Book of Discipline, or code of laws, as amended in 2019. That is the passage that outlines the disaffiliation process.

The denomination’s Judicial Counsel confirmed last year that any church seeking to depart over matters of human sexuality may use the process described in paragraph 2,553 to do so.

A rupture has been building for decades in the worldwide Methodist Church, fueled chiefly by disagreements over doctrine and practices regarding LGBTQ issues. The United Methodist Church retains its official doctrine, confirmed in 1972, that declares homosexuality to be “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

But there have been reports of some churches conducting same-sex weddings or hiring LGBTQ ministers. Some conservative congregations, anticipating potential changes to doctrine, decided they should leave the denomination altogether.

At the denomination’s global meeting in 2019, leaders proposed a framework for congregations to exit by the end of 2023. Carter, Berlin’s predecessor, led the formulation of the plan.

Churches are required to hold votes of their congregations and need approval from two-thirds to begin the process of disaffiliation, Berlin said. The 55 churches under consideration Saturday have already done so, he said.

The Florida Conference has already approved separation requests from 17 congregations over the past two years.

“I am always sad when a congregation decides to disaffiliate from the Methodist Church,” Berlin said. “I believe there's great vitality and strength in the connection that we enjoy as United Methodists. And it will be a pleasure to work with churches who desire to remain in that connection in the future.”

A breakaway denomination, the Global Methodist Church, formed last year. The Florida chapter of the Wesleyan Covenant Association said last year that many of the churches wishing to disaffiliate would join the new denomination.

Churches' exit costs revealed

Under a “trust clause” in its rules, the Florida Conference owns the buildings and grounds of member churches. That has presented a financial impediment for churches wishing to leave the congregation.

The plan adopted in 2019 allows churches to take over those assets, provided they pay off certain financial obligations determined by the conference. The list of churches eligible for disaffiliation includes an “exit obligation” amount for each.

The conference determined the figures for each church based on clergy pension liabilities and the church’s share of dues owed to the organization for the current year and one additional year, according to the session’s information guide.

The exit obligations range from $4,491 for New Hope UMC in Marion County to $1.1 million for Bay Hope Church in Lutz, a suburb of Tampa. Alturas UMC would have to pay $15,385.

The 55 churches requesting severance comprised about 15% of the total membership of the Florida Conference, as of Dec. 31, 2021, according to a fact sheet from the denomination. The value of the churches’ combined assets is listed as $35.8 million.

If representatives approve the disaffiliations at Saturday’s session, the churches would separate on June 1 – if they meet their exit obligations, including a presentation of a certificate of insurance. The Florida Conference self-insures its churches, except for catastrophic damage, Berlin said.

“There are some insurance issues that have to be resolved here in Florida that are unique because of our location,” Berlin said. “Again, it's just mutual responsibilities we have to one another that need to be fulfilled before churches are able to depart with the property.”

The withdrawal of clergy members from the denomination is separate from the church disaffiliation process. Clergy must submit written requests to Berlin.

Churches that are part of Saturday's vote

The churches seeking disaffiliation as part of the vote Saturday include:

  • Canal Point, on the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee

  • Community in Belle Glade

  • Community of Hope in Loxahatchee

  • Georgianna in Merritt Island

  • Roseland, on the east coast north of Sebastian

  • Community in DeBary

  • DeLeon Springs, north of DeLand

  • Dundee, in Polk County

  • First UMC in Clermont

  • First UMC in DeLand

  • First UMC in Tavares

  • Pine Castle in Orlando

  • Alturas, in Polk County between Bartow and Lake Wales

  • Bay Hope in Lutz

  • First UMC in Lutz

  • New Hope in Brandon

  • Palma Ceia in Tampa

  • Sylvan Abbey in Clearwater

  • Tampa Korean in Tampa

  • Crystal River on the west coast in Citrus County

  • Grace at Fort Clarke in Gainesville

  • Little Chapel Santos in Ocala

  • New Hope in Citra, north of Ocala

  • Spring Life in Spring Hill, Hernando County

  • Faith in Jacksonville

  • First UMC in Callahan, just north of Jacksonville

  • Lakewood in Jacksonville

  • Middleburg, just southwest of Jacksonville

  • Pierson, about 20 miles west of Ormond Beach near Lake George

  • Riverdale in St. Augustine

  • St. James in Palatka

  • Welaka, on the St. Johns River near the northern edge of Ocala National Forest.

  • First UMC in Alachua

  • Deer Lake in Tallahassee

  • First UMC in Lake City

  • Killearn in Tallahassee

  • Salem in Havana, northwest of Tallahassee

  • Waukeenah in Monticello, about 15 miles east of Tallahassee

  • Community in Marathon, in the Florida Keys

  • Korean American of S. Fla. in Tamarac, just northwest of Fort Lauderdale

  • North Hialeah Hispanic in Hialeah

  • Alva, just northeast of Fort Myers

  • Christ in Lehigh Acres, east of Fort Myers

  • Christ in Venice

  • Edgewater in Port Charlotte

  • Englewood in Englewood, on the west coast between the Gulf and Charlotte Harbor.

  • Estero, between Naples and Fort Myers

  • First UMC in Moore Haven, just west of Lake Okeechobee

  • First UMC in Sebring

  • First UMC in Clewiston, on the southwest shore of Lake Okeechobee

  • Grace in Cape Coral, west of Fort Myers near the Gulf.

  • Oneco in Bradenton

  • Port Charlotte, between Fort Myers and Sarasota

  • St. James/New Beginnings in Sarasota

  • St. John in Sebring

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lakeland-based Fla. Methodist Conference considers exits of 55 churches