United Methodist Church
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Disaffiliation Rumors, Myths, and Opportunities – #11: Three General Conferences?
A version of this post first appeared on my Facebook Page on March 22nd, 2023. A UM News Article about some Judicial Council rulings. They came down in one decision. The first ruling is that we can have elections if there are vacancies in the delegations for whatever reason. The second, and more interesting thing Continue reading
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Disaffiliation Rumors, Myths, and Opportunities – #10: The Western North Carolina Lawsuit
This originally appeared on my Facebook page on March 21, 2023 The lawsuit filed by several churches in the Western North Carolina Conference to sue the conference and Bishop has been dismissed. It has been dismissed, from my understanding, on grounds that the UMC has it’s own mechanism for handling the issues at play and Continue reading
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Disaffiliation Rumors, Myths, and Opportunities – #8: The Lewis Center Report
There is a report going around from the Lewis Center ( a church and ministry research and leadership development center at Wesley Theological Seminary). It gives us a quantitative look at some of the aspects of the disaffiliating churches so far. Here is a concise summary from the report (full report linked here): The areas Continue reading
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Disaffiliation Rumors, Myths, and Opportunities # 6 – Appointments, Communications, and Rural/Small Churches
This post originally appeared on my Facebook page, facebook.com/j.lemastersmith, on January 30th, 2023 Another rumor circulating is that The UMC does not care about the small and rural church (you could also include immigrant, ethnic, and inner-city churches, but I also know less about those systems). Some responses: “We ask for a licensed local and Continue reading
Jonathan LeMaster-Smith 