Repairing the Witness of the Church Begins With You

Photo by Jaime Lopes on Unsplash

It’s annual conference season in the United Methodist Church. Not all of our substack subscribers may be familiar with the governing structures and activities of the United Methodist Church. Annual conference is a time for churches in a designated region to gather in prayer, worship and to tend to various matters of church business. Over the past decade, (or more) annual conference has become, for many, an environment full of contention and disunity as the United Methodist Church wrangles breakdowns in governance, accusations of institutional corruption, theological disagreements over a number of issues including human sexuality, as well as overall declining membership numbers. After years of attempting to resolve these differences to no success, a means of exit has been created for churches and pastors who wish to leave the United Methodist Church.