'I'm no longer fighting any battles' Tuscarawas Co. churches leave United Methodist Church

NEW PHILADELPHIA – For decades, the Rev. Harley Wheeler has been fighting to make renewal a clear focus in the United Methodist Church.

He believes orthodox Christianity is life-affirming, powerful and points people to God. However, he also thinks the leaders of the United Methodist denomination were taking the church in a direction that was not in accordance with the Bible.

For Wheeler, that fight is over. In 2022, his church, Broadway United Methodist in New Philadelphia, left the denomination and joined the new Global Methodist Church.

"For 30 years I've been fighting battles. Now there's a time to just beat your swords into plowshares. I'm no longer fighting any battles anymore. We don't have the controversy going on about the basics of the Christian faith," he said.

More on disaffiliation: New Philadelphia congregation joins Global Methodist Church

His congregation is one of 16 churches in Tuscarawas County that have left the United Methodist denomination in the past three years and 250 churches in the East Ohio Conference that have made the move, or 36% of the churches in the conference.

Theological and biblical differences lead to split

The split was brought about by differences over such things as ordination of gay ministers and same-sex weddings.

According to Wheeler, leaders of the United Methodist Church knew in 2019 they were at an impasse between conservatives and liberals over theological and biblical differences. Rather than continue fighting over those issues, plans were made to split the denomination. By 2021, there was a route for churches to disaffiliate.

"Separation within a community is often painful," Cara Stultz Costello, superintendent of the Tuscarawas District of the East Ohio Conference, said in a statement.

"The East Ohio Conference of the UMC is joyfully committed to living out our calling in Jesus Christ. We will make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We continue to seek a close and holy following of the risen Christ in all that we do. We covet the prayers of all people of faith. We desire the Holy Spirit to enliven and lead us in our mission."

The separation process was a lengthy one. The United Methodist Church owns all church buildings in trust for its congregations, so churches that wanted to leave had to transfer title to their building. They had to get a two-thirds vote of approval from their members and then approval at their conference's annual meeting. And they had to make a payment to the denomination to leave, and sometimes that amount was substantial.

In the case of Broadway Methodist, it was $179,000.

Churches leaving were required to pay in full two years of that congregation’s apportionment commitment; pay in full the congregation’s pro-rata share of the conference’s pension liability, based on a formula approved by the annual conference; and pay any health care or pension arrearages a congregation may have accrued over the years.

Roxford Church in Union Township was able to pay its amount through donations, said its pastor, Jim Manbeck. The churches that Shelly Nordine serves – Dover Faith and Crooked Run Valley in Dover Township – had enough money to leave. Kory Rowland pastors three churches – Midvale Methodist, Newport Methodist and Uhrichsville First Methodist. One church received a donation to cover the cost, another had saved the money and the third raised more than enough money in two weeks.

Local churches have experienced an amicable separation

In some parts of the country, the split has been contentious. Two churches in the Oklahoma City area have gone to court to leave the United Methodist Church. Locally, however, the process has been fairly amicable. Costello has gotten a lot of the credit.

"Our district superintendent was helpful, because it was a long process, but she led us through each step, and I will say that the East Ohio Conference was very amenable to being helpful to us," Nordine said. "It wasn't like some of the other places I see all over the country where they're not being allowed to leave when they want to leave. It was a smooth process."

Manbeck agreed that Costello had made the process easy.

"My role as a conference superintendent regarding the work of separation through disaffiliation is to aid a congregation in an intentional discernment process," Costello said. "To this end, all of the superintendents have provided clear, consistent and accurate information for consideration. We do this work with love for the congregations and people with whom we serve. We desire for churches to be vital and healthy so that their work bears fruit now and in the future.

"Votes about disaffiliation are never simply rational or financial. They are also deeply emotional. A vote to disaffiliate is a vote to leave relationships with other people and institutions that have helped congregation members grow in Christ over the years. Our bishop, Tracy S. Malone, and the members of her cabinet are mindful of the complexity of this conversation and process, and strive to steward the faithful in ways which are reflective of the spirit of God at work in and through us."

'We welcome anyone and everyone'

Rowland said that for him, the biggest part of the disaffiliation process was educating the members of his congregations.

"Unfortunately, the internet and everything made it very, very hard for people to get accurate information and really painted it as, if you join the Global Methodists, it's because you don't love homosexuals or it's because you hate them," he said. "That's not the case. The Bible has standard, and we're all sinners in need of a savior. In our church we welcome anyone and everyone, but we can't affirm certain lifestyles."

The split was hard for some of his members because they had relatives in same-sex relationships.

"I had several one-on-one conversations because they said, does this mean we hate my relative, or does this mean my relative can't come here? Again, it was because the internet painted it in a certain light. There were a lot of one-on-one meetings. I said no, bring them. No, we want them here."

All four pastors said the vote to disaffiliate in their churches was unanimous or near unanimous.

"They were united in No. 1 on God's word and God's love," Manbeck said. "This isn't a hate thing. It's about trying to do our best to follow God's word. To me, the church is a hospital. We're all sinners. We all need help. You show me one person that's got their act together completely. It's not there."

Churches now members of the Allegheny West Conference

All of their congregations are now a part of the Global Methodist Church, which is led by a provisional leadership council of 27 people from across the globe.

Wheeler is a presiding elder in the church and belongs to the new denomination's Allegheny West Conference, which serves 530 congregations in Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

Since his church has joined the Global Methodist Church, Wheeler has been busy providing assistance and guidance to other congregations that wanted to leave the United Methodist Church. In the month of June alone, 237 left the East Ohio Conference.

"So that entailed for a number of us going around to churches on invitation to speak and to share and tell people what was going on in the Global Methodist Church," he said.

Winfield Community Church retaining independence

Winfield Community Church in Dover Township was one of the first congregations to leave the United Methodist Church, disaffiliating in 2021. However, it has not joined the Global Methodists.

Since leaving the denomination, the church has been in a rebuilding process.

"When they left the UMC, it was kind of an all-hands-on-deck situation where you go from having an organization that's all built, you have all the structure, and then all the volunteers now have to jump in and do that," said the church's pastor, Josh Davis, who came to Winfield a year after disaffiliation.

"They don't have a paid staff person to do all that stuff. When I showed up, there wasn't really a Sunday school ministry. In the past year, we've rebuilt those programs and started those up. We're just excited to see new families show up."

Winfield has seen about a 75% increase in attendance in the past year.

Davis said he thinks his congregation is better served by staying on its own.

"The ability to govern yourself on a local level, I think, at least in my experience, has been way, way better," he said. "The way Winfield Community Church is going to operate is not the way any other church in the world is going to operate. The needs of the people in this congregation are not the same needs as everybody across large swaths of the world or even the state. So, the ability to, on the fly, local govern and make those decisions yourself makes it a lot more flexible and you can meet the needs of the people in your local community a lot easier than having oversight from afar."

'It's brought us even tighter together'

Though disaffiliation has been a long and difficult process, the churches' pastors say it has been good for their members.

"This has been great motivation for us to really change the way that the community sees us and really change the way we reach out to the community," Rowland said. "The motivation I've seen from the congregation, I can't say, oh, I did that. I did none of that. They said, this is our church, and we want it to be here forever. They've just taken the reins, and we did a complete head-to-toe remodel and overhaul of this is what a church is like. It's been fantastic."

Added Manbeck, "It's brought us even tighter together as a family, but also with the desire to start working with more churches. Whether you're Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist, we're all God's family. That's how we should be acting."

Reach Jon at 330-364-8415 or at jon.baker@timesreporter.com.

Churches in the Tuscarawas Valley that have left the United Methodist Church

TUSCARAWAS COUNTY

• Broadway, New Philadelphia

• Crooked Run, New Philadelphia

• Dover Faith

• Holmes, New Philadelphia

• Midvale

• Mineral City

• Newcomerstown Calvary

• Newcomerstown Christ

• New Cumberland

• Newport

• Pleasant Valley, Dennison

• Roxford

• Uhrichsville First

• Uhrichsville Grace

• Union Hill, Sugarcreek

• Winfield

CARROLL COUNTY

• Baxter’s Ridge, Carrollton

• Sherrodsville Calvary

• Chestnut Ridge, Bergholz

• Harsh Memorial, Carrollton

• Leavittsville

• Leesville

• Pleasant Hill, Carrollton

• Mount Zion, Minerva

• Pleasant Grove, Minerva

HARRISON COUNTY

• Asbury Chapel, Cadiz

• Bethel, Jewett

• Bowerston First

• Bowerston Trinity

• Deersville

• Hanover, Scio

• Harrisville

• Hopedale

• Jewett

• New Athens

• New Rumley

• Perrysville

• Piedmont

• Pleasant Valley, Scio

• Rankin, Cadiz

Source: Pastor Harley Wheeler

This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: 16 Tuscarawas County churches have left United Methodist denomination