By Thomas Lambrecht In a newly released decision, the Judicial Council states, “the process in Par. 2548.2 may not be used as a pathway for local churches to disaffiliate from The United Methodist Church.” This decision responds to a May request from the Council of Bishops to rule on whether
By Thomas Lambrecht It is important to have accurate information about all the issues surrounding disaffiliation in order to make good decisions. Last week, we explored the information shared by UM Communications in a post called “Is the United Methodist Church really …? (Part I).” We covered the status of
By Thomas Lambrecht Recently, United Methodist News Service, along with several bishops, has issued articles aimed at correcting what they perceive to be misinformation being shared about what The United Methodist Church will become in the future. Unfortunately, some of what they share about perceived misinformation is itself misinformed.
By Simon Mafunda The intriguing and inexplicable ways in which Jesus Christ works reminds me of an incident at my home in Zimbabwe a couple of months ago. I urgently needed to support a couple of my tomato plants which were starting to fall over with fruit. I retrieved a
By Thomas Lambrecht One of the important financial costs for local churches to disaffiliate from the UM Church is a payment of that local church’s proportional share of the annual conference’s unfunded pension liability. That liability is calculated monthly by Wespath and shared with each annual conference on either
By Thomas Lambrecht In the midst of the sometimes heated rhetoric around separation and the conflicts engendered by bishops and annual conferences who are imposing draconian requirements on churches desiring to disaffiliate from The United Methodist Church, it is easy to overlook the annual conferences where the process is
By Thomas Lambrecht It was announced this week that 106 United Methodist congregations in Florida have filed lawsuits against the annual conference after invitations to negotiate an amicable exit were ignored and rejected by the Florida Annual Conference. The purpose of the lawsuits is to gain reasonable terms for
By Stephanie Greenwald A couple of years ago my family and I went ziplining at Findley Lake in the beautiful terrain of Western New York. We effortlessly flew through the air from one station to the next. When we got to the final platform, our guide who was taking care