Struthers United Methodist Church Forced To Close
Вставка
- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- The East Ohio Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church has forced a congregation in Struthers Ohio to close their doors against their will. This unfortunate patter of behavior seems to be commonplace in The United Methodist Church in this season of disaffiliation, we look into this case and explore what happened to Struthers United Methodist Church.
Show Notes:
Christian Post Article:
www.christianp...
NPR Article:
www.npr.org/20....
DS Profile:
www.eocumc.com...
Bishop Profile:
www.unitedmeth...
I am a member of the former Struthers United Methodist Church. The conference closed us, and seized our property. Another church saw our plight, and offered us a place to worship as a new church, so our congregation is still together. Our congregation has,, almost unanimously, withdrawn from the UMC. We are doing well, with our 3rd Weds service coming up tomorrow! Praise God!
The denomination should not be able to close a church when the local church is responsible for all expenses of operating and maintaining the church!
It depends on the manner in which title is held.
@Shirtless ,
That I understand, legally they can. What I mean is the denomination should not hold title for local churches that are paid for an operated by the local church.
Anyone considering doing an endowment should add a clause that it be returned if denomination decides to close the church!
Absolutely. I forget if I mentioned it in this segment, but there was a small church in my conference that had to walk away from a $400K endowment because it was established wrongly. Tragic.
Congratulations on your GMC ordination!
UMC is making a big mistake shuttering these churches. The buildings will be left to sit and decay, losing monetary value.
A large part of the issue with the story that you presented is that you have a woman in an authoritative position over men. No matter how modern our world is, it's out of order.
Struthers resident, very sad to see this happen, but at the same time we understand that these things happen and we have to move on. Bless you and all of the commenters.
Another gut wrenching story. Apportionments are an essential but need a thorough overview for many UMC congregations...20 percent of the church budget is too burdensome. The UMC, once this horrible time has passed, hopefully will be able to take stock of themselves...an old fashioned comeuppance...my guess is if they fail to address these issues quickly...there will be more vacant pews...because people will walk (in disgust--and it won't be for only theological differences...but for justice issues (internal justice issues). Congratulations on your new ministry within the GMC...lots of lessons to learn here as the GMC goes forward. God bless you and prayers for the people of the now defunct Struthers UMC. Just heartbreaking! No words.
Southern Baptists look better and better! No apportionment, each church decides how much to give to their Conference. Each church owns their own building, hires their own minister, and pays its own bills.
Dave, it would be worth looking into the woes the SBC is going through right now. I'm not sure it is a good example of a body I'd wanna be in right now. Any system/group is only as good as its constituent members.
@PlainSpoken ,
SBC has issues, but at least each church has no economic ties that cannot easily be broken. Churches can disaffiliate at any time they want too.
The conference control over local churches assets really seems like it's not a good thing in it's current form.
They had even been doing mission work. Could have done more with the Apportionment dollars!
How much of all of this is $$$$ - ??? The deeper I get into this the more that seems to be at the root. My pastor is returning today from Annual Conference in Harrisburg PA - - I understand from my BFF that we are staying put. We have 8 on the roles - as most have died off.
Money surely plays a role in lots of these decisions. However, in the case of Struthers, this doesn't seem to be the case. Best guess at this point is that it was a combination of personal feelings of contempt towards the pastor and leadership of the church, plus an ideological intolerance of right-leaning theology from conference leadership. They are just done dealing with us in some areas. It is worth it to them to create a phony process to systematically remove right-leaning voices from their annual conference assemblies. It is a hostile takeover.
Some really bad suppositions on your part... Especially your male/female issue comment regarding male pastor and female DS and Bishop. And... Bishop Malone was VERY clear about disaffiliation deadlines very early on.
Nice. It has been a while since I filmed this, but I'm pretty sure the sex difference issue was a sort of "I can't help but notice," sort of thing. Not an allegation. Moreover, I don't recall saying that Malone was obsequious about the deadline. Rather, the way I recall is that Struthers and its people didn't see a clear need to hurry it along until it was too late. The timing of the meeting with the DS seemed to intentionally deprive them of that window to exit intentionally. Given that you don't have a name and your proximity to this situation isn't clear, I'm not inclined to give too much credence to your pushback. I sought input from district media leadership prior to filming. Their voicemail wasn't sent up to receive messages.
Just one of my typical stats comments: Really consider a more long-term view. I typically look at 2009-2019. Stats go nuts during covid - there is no standard method of counting online/TV - and remember the 2021 AC stats are generally submitted very early in the year.
Yeah it’ll be really interesting to look at the 2022 numbers when they come out.
These "Conversations at the Cross" sure reminds me of "spiritual leaders crucifying Jesus". 🟥RED FLAGS🟥