UMC Giving Drops Drastically After General Conference Coup
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- Giving numbers are starting to come out for the UMC and, to its credit, the GCFA board is making the numbers known. In this segment, I go through a portion of a UM News article (linked below) that details some of the content of their first meeting since the close of General Conference. Most salient of everything in the article is the report that giving significantly dropped in the last two months for reasons that I are not know. I float the theory that churches are no longer happy to support the UMC now that it has decisively sided with far left progressivism.
Link to UM News Article, "Amid uncertainty, finance board plans for new day" by Heather Hahn - www.umnews.org...
We are a UMC Church in the FL part of the Al/West FL conference. We submitted all required docs to the Bishop (Graves) well before the end of Dec 2023. We had taken a vote and the vote was well past 2/3 in favor of leaving. Our Church leaders decided to halt apportionments in May, we have removed the name United Methodist from our signs, changed the name to a more descriptive (by location) name, and gone from 4 pastors to one. Now we do not wait for the other shoe to drop. We are moving ahead. We cannot disaffiliate because we have been roadblocked, but we can disassociate. many have left for a new GM church, but we are still a vibrant church family preaching the word of God, and I believe we are turning the corner on the sabotage inflicted by a group of woke leaders who are now losing their income stream.
This happened to me in the Episcopal Church. You may have to leave the church building to maintain your faith in Christ. I ended up traveling an hour to an Anglican Church to find a church home.
Thank you for your reporting. First off, I pastor a congregation that disaffiliated, and I say the UMC is reaping what it has sown. Instead of being sad that the UMC is declining, a decline that they chose, teach obedience to the following scriptures: 2 Corinthians 6:15-18, 1 Timothy 5:22, and 2 John vss., 9-11. There is no reason to be sentimental about the UMC or its problems.
Give to people in need as able and do not give to a church that is celebrating sin!
A friend is pastor of a rural UM church that wants to disassociate but cannot because they cannot come up with the money needed to buy the church property from the denomination. They are trying their best to evade the changes to the liturgy dictated to them. There are probably many other congregations faced with the same desires and difficulties.
Still in a church being held hostage by umc (I no longer capitalize these 3 letters). We are in a class action lawsuit with Alabama West Florida Conference, which as evidenced has been unsuccessful so far. Why am I still in? Love our congregation and our pastor, who is a former umc pastor. Yes, he is a supply pastor who asked our DS if he could pastor our church, as conference had NO ONE to appoint to pastor our church. They can't send us a pastor, but they refuse to let us leave.THEY BROKE THEIR CONTRACT!!
Thank you for reporting on this.
I am in the same boat as you. We are awaiting the final word on the litigation we are in with several other churches. I am also not very hopeful that litigation is going to go anywhere. But I love my church family and hate to leave but I plan to if things dont pan out. They had NO regard whatsoever for the Bible believing / preaching churches. They claimed they wanted to be inclusive. Well, they included all but those of us who were long time traditional Methodists. I will continue to pray for those that remain but I can no longer support their ways.
Our small rural church in Ky is also waiting to see if the Ky Conference will allow us to leave and we have not paid apportionments since the Spring of this year. Our DS just messaged me the other day and basically implied the decesion on whether to allow us to leave is being delayed due to the new bishop appointments effective Sept.1, our new bishop is David Graves. We pray for all the churches that were misled and want out.
EXCELLENT ! I had to go through "taking a walk" twice, and it is a gut-wrenching experience. Obviously the UMC hierarchs have not learned that people will not pay for GARBAGE ! To all who are thinking about fleeing... Do it for your own inner peace and the welfare of your soul ! The Lord God has good and faithful people all over the map, and you will quickly find a place amongst them. Blessings to all !
My church deceived us by taking a “wait and see” stance. Now we can’t leave. They will not get another dime out of me. I still attend because of my friends and family there
attend a church family where the Gospel is preached, the Truth is upheld, and you sense the Spirit. Family and friends are nice, but God is always.
I suspect that there are many United Methodist Church members currently who have no intention on leaving, not that they support the positions currently held, but they are unwilling to give up their physical church plant. I find this very sad. A building is greater than religious belief?
The primary arguments of those I have talked to basically boils down to:
1. The church is a social club they don't want to leave.
2. They have decades invested into a job they don't want to walk away from.
Doctrine is not their primary motivation or concern.
There will also be some who want to see a way through it all and still don't realize that "it won't happen here" will be wrong in a few years.
It may be an issue of practicality. Their facilities costs are low in the existing building, especially in rural areas, and they cannot afford to even rent another facility and still pay a pastor. I have a friend who is a pastor with a church in that situation. He works as a car salesman while also pastoring a small rural church congregation that can barely cover their operating budget despite not paying him. Renting a school or hall is an added cost they can’t afford, and even if they could, having to set up chairs and pulpit each Sunday and not having a place for activities during the week would hurt their sense of community.
In the case of my former UMC church, it is social. Long term friendships. Mind you, the church is down to about maybe 14 members. I expect the church to be merged into a church about 3 miles away which has about 65 members. Then the vacant church will be sold off.
An additional point is that the nearest GMC church is at least 23 miles away in a completely different community. There is no church within reason for these believers to go to.
I grew up Methodist in the 1950's and 1960's. Until 1968, when the UMC was created via merger with the Evangelical United Brethren (a congregation with Wesleyan roots), it was called the Methodist Episcopal Church.
("episcopal" due to its polity)
My family were Methodist, so that is the denomination in which I grew up.
I left the UMC in 1975 because of its unrelenting sliding into apostasy.
The abysmal behavior celebrated at the 2024 General Conference of the UMC is merely the CAPSTONE of a massive decline that has been going on, unabated, for over 60 years.
The decline into apostasy (which is truly a tragedy) was snail's pace till the UMC was formed in 1968. Then, in a manner of speaking, it "revved up on steroids"!
I am grateful that many faithful Christians that identify as Methodist (in the tradition of John and Charles Wesley), and are staunchly Biblical-centered, have left the UMC and affiliated with congregations such as the Global Methodist Fellowship, which I understand is grounded in getting back to the credal statement "that the Word of God contained in the Old and New Testaments is sufficient for faith and PRACTICE."
After leaving UMC, I was part of the Presbyterian Church USA.
But they also opted to flirt with apostasy, and are rapidly sliding the slippery slope to oblivion.
Now days, when I attend a church service, it is (usually) the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in America, which is (presently) dedicated to restoring the primacy of Biblical Scripture as the foundation for faith, belief and practice.
This comment is long; I apologize, but I had to get it off my conscience.
The UMC is going to disappear in the coming years.
Unfortunately, apostasy only goes in one direction. Downhill.
I would say way down to the depths of Sheol.
@@eileenthrift8259no, Gehenna.
@@joebollig2689 Yes, you are correct. Mea culpa.
While in our conference of the GMC, we've not had to even ask for apportionments from member Churches. This did not have to happen.
Lesson on why religion and politics need to be separate and are not equal. Interesting, our church paid quite a bit more than 2 years apportionments to get out of the UMC. Lucky us.
I'd say I was shocked...but nothing surprises me with the the umc anymore. We're still trapped, but hopefully not much longer.
Agreed: the “Palestinian Jewish Rabbi” moniker some try to drape over Jesus is inaccurate grandstanding…for exactly the reasons you stated.
Every knee shall bow.
Random: Don't know what the answer is, but you need some sort of "extro" to your videos. 'twas listening to this whilst tinkering in the garage and then I hear you finish one sentence and the silence. I wondered what happened to my audio until I came back to the phone and found you just stopped. Also, always interested in hearing more on how churches who desire can free themselves of the yoke of the UMC. Keep up the good work.
I have been told that people still attending my former UMC church (who were kept in the dark about disaffiliation) have stopped giving. They do not want their money to go to the U. Methodist church. That would be since the beginning of June.
Lbgt+ generally are not a giving crowd. Imho. Sad to see it happen but. GMC just opened locally.
Pstr. Jeffrey,
The UMC issue has created controversies in Africa. Speaking from the Nigeria Annual Conference, not only did it caused destruction of properties, but also faithlessness, evil, treat to life, there were instances of murder in the past with impunity. Currently as I send this message the Nigeria government (Taraba State) has shut down all UMC churches in the state until further notice due to the ongoing dispute. The UMC's untold truth in Africa will unfold as one of the destructive deceptions ever orchestrated in the church's history, especially in the Nigeria area. We trusted the UMC for more than 200 years what bargain did they have with some Africa leaders to destroy us completely? This betral of trust is hurtful and i can't trust the UMC anymore.
In Nigeria, they took awareness away from our people, they lied to them, and it seems it's the only effort they have to make to crush us, all of us. What have we done to the American UMC to deserve this betrayal?
No surprise here!
This is what happens when you allow the weeds to grow and the goats to thrive in your church.
I know that in my local UMC that I attend People including myself designate their titles so that it will not go to the conference and possibly support LGTQ+ . We are in the Holston conference.
I hope I am wrong, but what makes you trust that the funds you designate in the umc (someone commented they no longer capitalize, I agree) will not be used in a way you did not "designate"? The umc has proven to be UNFAITHFUL to God, His Word, and its own BOD. Why would they suddenly become honorable regarding tithes or offerings?
Go Woke, Go Broke!!
There are so many parallels between the UMC and Sears.
The UMC is learning what many already knew. The movers and shakers are not the tithers. The givers in any denomination are mostly the ones who have a basic understanding of scripture.
The UMC as the world knew it is gone. IMO, It is no longer a Christian denomination.
They had to expect these downward trends. Right?
I would assume that is correct. I walked away after GC 2024. I would guess that many across the country left after the GC.
I can't recall which plainspoken podcast, but Jeffrey commented how clueless the umc leadership is regarding those folks in the pews. They never anticipated the number of churches that wanted out, the number of people who would walk away, or any of the fallout from their unfaithful decisions. They have reaped what they have sown.
@@eileenthrift8259 true.
Field of Dreams did a number on tons of boomers. They never really recovered. For so many, that movie described an "if you build it, they will come" thing that seemed so spiritually true that they became willing to burn the whole thing down in order for Marx's ghost to come back and institute his utopia on earth.
Would love to hear your take on the South GA conference new bishop.
I’m publishing today’s segment in a bit. I speak to it.
I heard that the UMC is going to ban The Lord's Prayer. Is this true?
I don’t think so. I don’t see how it could be.
@@plainspokenpod Why? What they’re doing is worse.
I will predict that instead of banning the Lord's prayer, the umc will remove "our Father" and replace it with gender neutral wording.
I predict that instead of banning the Lord's prayer, the umc will remove "our Father" and replace it with gender neutral wording. Changing, eliminating, or ignoring God's truth is the MO of the umc.
I predict that instead of banning the Lord's prayer, the words "our Father" will be replaced with gender neutral wording. The umc will change, eliminate, or ignore the truth of God's Word.
To be fair, attendance at all churches dropped dramatically during and immediately after the Covid pandemic. Are you accounting for that in your analysis?
Dude, watch the video. Yes.
@@plainspokenpod I left the UMC when I could no longer give to support our bishop and the Claremont-trained minister who was misleading the congregation. Not all churches have "dropped dramatically" and stayed down. My Assembly of God church here in Washington state paid off its mortgage during the lock down, and attendance has not only bounced back but we are seeing many new young families, and even teenagers coming on their own. We are debt-free and are completing renovation of our sanctuary and facilities. Next month we are planting another church. The lesson is that staying true to God's Word is the correct path, for individual believers, pastors and corporate bodies of believers. I pray for the success of the GMC and remember how painful was the decision I and others made to leave a fallen church, one that had dropped from 600 in attendance to several dozen on a good Sunday because it had become a house of lies. I still feel that pain years later.
Depart from evil
The UMC will be smaller and leaner after people are done leaving.It will also be a stronger church.
We will definitely see. I am quite skeptical about that, but I can be wrong!