Over 150 United Methodist Churches in State have Chosen to Disaffiliate Local Methodist Churches Debate Splitting with National Church

The service celebrated the local church officially becoming a “Global” Methodist church. It also served as a look back at its long history as a “United” Methodist church.

It was one of the saddest hours I’ve ever spent in a church building anywhere. I had been among the few members of the church to vote “no” during the secret balloting to leave the United Methodist Church and join the fledgling Global Methodist Church.

A large majority voted to disaffiliate from the old church’s worldwide organization and to go Global. They/Global won. We/United lost. As they say in baseball, you win some, you lose some.

There had been this raging controversy for several years over “...Longstanding divisions in The United Methodist Church over LGBTQ inclusion” in its ministries and doctrines (contained in its hallowed “Book of Discipline, paragraph 2553), according to the United Methodist News Network.

The denomination’s ruling body, known as General Conference, started in 2019 allowing churches that didn’t agree with certain issues of homosexuality to disaffiliate from the UMC. The movement away from the group began slowly but this year the fires of disaffiliation have raged, and more than 2,000 UMC churches have since left the fold. The majority are in the South and Southwest (no huge surprise.)

The Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church, which governs the body in the state, has seen more than 150 of its long-standing churches depart the scene.

I can go home again. The church in which I was raised, Centenary United Methodist in McComb, and the Jackson church of which I was a 20-year member, Galloway Memorial United Methodist, have decided to stay put, at least for the time being. Thank you, Jesus.

Centenary has not held a vote on the issue, but I believe if ballots were cast today, the vote to remain in the UMC or to disaffiliate would be close.

It is my humble opinion that it will be a cold day in Hell before Galloway’s members would ever have such a result.

Galloway is one of the most social-issue progressive churches in the nation, but had its moments in the darkness during Mississippi’s bad, old days of extreme racial strife. It survived schism to emerge stronger in the light of day. An example is when the church opened its arms in the early 2000’s to a large contingent of Latinos as worshippers – after the group of immigrants had been spurned by other area churches.

“My” Galloway of today has also enjoyed great success in taking care of many of the needs of inner-Jackson’s expanding homeless aggregation.

If you’re reading this and have hunger pangs, seek out Galloway. They will feed you and smile upon you and your troubles.

Another inner-city Jackson church that I predict will never go Global is Wells United Methodist, whose website credo puts it simply: “Inclusive is our word … We want to be warm, real and open.”

There are a few other – a very few – Mississippi UMC congregations remaining just that, United Methodist.

Somewhere across the mountains, hills, hollers and plateaus of North Carolina, Bishop Connie Shelton, the new statewide UMC leader, must by smiling back at Galloway for its stance. She and her husband, Joey Shelton, were the church’s co-pastors for several years in the mid-2000s.

Shelton has been an unabashed opponent of disaffiliation. Recently appointed to the episcopacy, she has aggressively discouraged churches from leaving the UMC for “Global.”

The Methodist church is among many national religious groups arguing over LGBTQ controversies. Jesus has wept before. He must be at it again.

---Mac Gordon is a native of McComb. He is a retired newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.