Members of Louisiana churches that have disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church will likely encounter some small, barely noticeable changes when they return to the pews Sunday. That's if they notice changes at all, some church leaders say.
But there has been plenty of activity this week in church offices and within the leadership of the 95 Methodist churches that recently exited the UMC.
Nearly 40% of the UMC churches in Louisiana have cut ties to the global denomination over the past four years, the last 95 of them May 27 in a meeting at First United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge. Some Louisiana Methodists cite disputes over gay marriage and outwardly gay clergy in the UMC as the principal cause of the split. Others say the greater cause for separation is that progressives within the denomination have ceased to follow traditional Methodist teaching that bars avowed gays from serving in the clergy and from officiating at gay marriages. Either way, the impact has been substantial and nationwide.
“You can’t be 40% less of what you are and be the same,” said Todd Rossnagel, a spokesman for the Louisiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.
He said while many churches have left, it is noteworthy that the majority of Louisiana Methodist churches chose to remain within the UMC fold. He said there would be no more disaffiliations this year; the deadlines for churches leaving the UMC have passed.
Midnight Wednesday marked the formal break point for those who voted to leave the denomination, Rossnagal said. No one was surprised by the May 27 result; individual churches voted among themselves earlier whether they would remain in the UMC or leave. Last Saturday's vote was more formal, with May 31 marking the formal date for the split.
The Rev. Steve Bell, senior pastor at First United Methodist Church in Shreveport, said his flock — one of the largest in Louisiana — voted April 16 to leave the UMC: 940 of those voting opted to leave, 166 voted to stay. With that 84% vote to leave, the church left the denomination and began to prepare for what will come.
Bell said his church marked the end of the affiliation Wednesday night with prayers and communion at 11:30 p.m. As the bread was broken for communion, he said, the midnight hour struck. “It was beautiful,” he said.
Changes in signage at the 180-year-old church are underway, and will cost more than $12,000. Hymnals, marked as UMC, will be replaced.
About 65 members have left the church, he said, which is now First Methodist Church of Shreveport; others may follow. But Bell said many individual Methodists from area churches that voted to remain within the UMC have inquired about or have joined his church this week.
Rossnagel said it’s difficult to know what votes and disaffiliations will be mean for denomination numbers. He said many of the churches that left the UMC on May 27 are smaller, and the exodus numbers will be small from many of them. He said while two churches from Lafayette left the denomination, some of their individual members may wind up enrolling at other UMC churches in the area.
Chris Blanchard, who served as pastor at United Methodist Church of the Covenant in Lafayette, ending with his retirement in 2016, returned there in April to lead the church — it’s now the Covenant Methodist Church — in an interim role. The former pastor, he said, left for a church post in Texas outside of the UMC.
Blanchard said the dispute that led to the departure of so many churches from the UMC has its roots in the 1970s, when progressives and traditionalists differed over some of the social turmoil that was launched in that decade. But, Blanchard said, most Methodist churched hewed to the longstanding denominational standards. When the United Methodists narrowly voted to maintain those lines in 2019, it appeared that the traditionalists had carried the day by a slender amount.
That changed, Blanchard said, during COVID-19, when the pandemic kept the UMC from meeting in large groups. Blanchard said progressives opted to not follow what he said were the obligations of the vote and continued to perform gay weddings and ordain outwardly gay pastors.
Conversely, Rossnagel said the overriding issue for progressive members was inclusion within the denomination. He suggested the traditionalists were punitive toward those who opted to fully include gays within the UMC.
Not so, Blanchard said. United Methodists have always been inclusive, he said, and welcomed gay people to the church. The difference, he said, is biblical: They could not marry within the church or pastor churches if they didn't adhere to biblical teaching.
Bell said there is plenty of work to be done as the traditionalists and progressives each go their own ways. He said there were legal issues to attend this week because his church is a new legal entity. There were matters pertaining to pensions for pastors and church employees. The disaffiliated churches have to find new insurers.
At First Methodist Shreveport, the church board met this week for the last time as United Methodists, he said, then dismissed and reconvened as a new board outside the UMC realm.
He said the Shreveport church has gathered up some 20-30 boxes of archived materials pertaining to baptisms, weddings, funerals and more that occurred while the First Methodists were part of the UMC. He said the materials will be delivered to the regional UMC office.
Bell and Blanchard said the disaffiliated churches retain possession of their property and the liquid assets. The churches have begun to meet to plan their next steps, which might include affiliation with Methodists denominations other than the UMC or remain independent.
Bell said the Global Methodist Church, recognized as a conservative Protestant denomination created in 2022 as churches started to leave the UMC, may be an attractive option for affiliation, he said, because it has ties to seminaries and could help the disaffiliated churches replace pastors when necessary. That was a perceived advantage to affiliation with the UMC, he said: It provided pastors.
Blanchard said there was some acrimony involved in the split. For example, he said, he was told his credentials as a pastor would be at risk if he remained a pastor after May 31. He said he is now affiliated as a pastor with the Global Methodist Church, which he expects to become the second largest Methodist denomination.
But despite some harsh feelings, he said, his church is looking ahead. He said Covenant Methodist, which has about 200 regular worshipers, has always chosen to support the Methodist Children’s Homes in the state and has been active in responding to those afflicted by storm damage. That won’t change.
“We’ll get back to what we were doing, building the Kingdom of God,” he said.
Bell said his church, too, is looking forward to their next step and an appointed committee is studying if and where his church will affiliate. He said it will have an answer in 40 days.
He said there is no animosity for the UMC, for whom he has served as a pastor for 24 years. In fact, he said, his wife remains a UMC pastor.