In a calm, steady voice in a video on Facebook, the Rev. Cary Stockett invites anyone who feels “somewhat left behind” to worship at Galloway United Methodist Church in downtown Jackson.
“We’re trying to put it out there that this is a safe place to fall,” said Stockett, senior pastor at Galloway, which has no plans to leave the United Methodist Church.
“You can come here and worship. You can come here and receive the Lord’s Supper and you won’t be walking into another squabble in the church about wanting to leave the United Methodist Conference.”
The video, filmed during Holy Week, first aired as part of Galloway’s televised worship service on Easter and later appeared on social media, he said, noting it was done with encouragement from the church’s lay leadership.
Stockett said he recorded the message because he knows several United Methodist churches in Mississippi are considering disaffiliating with the denomination and that has been a “painful and bruising” process.
“We know that in a great number of those cases not all the members are going to feel the same way,” he said. “They may have difficulties of conscience that will not allow them to follow their congregation into whatever new church they will become. Likewise, in our congregation, we have LGBTQ members, and we love them and care for them and support them the same way we support the rest of the church family.”
The invitation to worship at Galloway is not an effort to grow the church membership, Stockett said. “If someone comes to us, we’re not going to be pressuring them to join our congregation,” he said.
Galloway is one of numerous United Methodist faith communities that have applied to become what’s known as a Lighthouse Congregation, said Jasmine Haynes, communications specialist for the Mississippi Conference of The United Methodist Church.
Lighthouse Congregations are specifically trained to welcome anyone whose church has closed or disaffiliated or someone who is simply looking for a place to belong, she said.
Discord in the United Methodist Church about whether to accept or reject LGBTQ clergy and same marriage has been building for years. The conflict dates to 1972 when conversations began at General Conference, the denomination’s lawmaking body that generally meets every four years and usually has about 1,000 delegates.
“This has been going on for quite a while,” Stockett said. “It came to a boiling point in 2016 but in 2019 we thought we would be able to work it out. That failed and it got worse.”
At the 2019 General Conference, by a slim majority, the conference affirmed a stance against the ordination of openly gay ministers and the marriage of same-sex couples. Conservative delegates from Africa and Asia joined with U.S. conservatives to reiterate the United Methodist Church definition of marriage as “the union of one man and one woman” and to bar the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals.” The delegates approved strict new penalties for clergy who violate the church rules.
Delegates rejected the One Church Plan, which would have allowed local churches and conferences to set their own policies on the role of LGBTQ people in the life of the church.
What resulted from the 2019 General Conference was the disaffiliation process that a congregation must follow to leave the denomination. After a church has a called meeting to decide if the congregation wants to disaffiliate, it must meet certain criteria and the request to disaffiliate must be approved at a session of the annual conference.
It was expected that the more progressive churches might disaffiliate, but in a strange twist, it appears smaller, more conservative churches are doing so. Some congregations attribute their leaving to the lack of enforcement on the United Methodist Church’s stance on LGBTQ pastors and marriages, while other congregations appear to use the process as a way to break away and become independent of the United Methodist Church.
Complicating the disaffiliating issue is this: United Methodist church buildings are not owned by the individual congregations but held in trust. A congregation can keep their buildings after the legal proceedings have been completed and a financial settlement with the United Methodist Church is reached.
Bishop Sharma D. Lewis, resident bishop of the Mississippi Annual Conference, addressed disaffiliation in a Jan. 11 letter posted on the Mississippi Annual Conference homepage. She wrote:
“I know that our concerns rest with our faith communities, clergy and laity that are disaffiliating from The United Methodist Church. As your new resident bishop, my desire is for everyone to remain in the Wesleyan family. However, I do understand that for several reasons faith communities, clergy and laity are desiring to leave. The Bible records in Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV, “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”
“Therefore, I believe that after a faith community, clergy person or laity discerns another pathway, they must follow it and be obedient to our Lord and Savior. I affirm the Mississippi Conference’s established, collaborative and prudent disaffiliation process that is in compliance with The Book of Discipline and upheld by our cabinet and conference trustees. I want to reiterate as your resident bishop, it is my intent to be faithful to uphold The Book of Discipline as I was consecrated as a bishop in 2016.”
Lewis goes on to say: “There are two gatherings scheduled to process disaffiliations in the Mississippi Annual Conference—one will occur June 28, 2023 during our regular session of annual conference, and the other will take place December 9, 2023 at a called session of annual conference.”
Currently, 856 churches belong to the Mississippi Conference of The United Methodist Church.
Northeast Jackson includes a handful of United Methodist churches: Briarwood United Methodist Church (also the location of the Mississippi Conference offices), Broadmeadow United Methodist Church, Christ United Methodist Church and St. Luke’s United Methodist Church. While not located in northeast Jackson, Wells United Methodist Church at 2019 Bailey Ave. has many faithful members who live in northeast Jackson.
South Madison County includes First United Methodist Church in Ridgeland and Madison United Methodist Church, Parkway Hills United Methodist and St. Matthew’s United Methodist Church, all in Madison.
Of the United Methodist churches in northeast Jackson, Ridgeland and Madison, only one has made the news for moving forward with leaving the conference. In January, Madison United Methodist Church announced its members voted to move forward with disaffiliating from the United Methodist Church.
So far, just one United Methodist church in northeast Jackson has left the denomination and that is Bellwether United Methodist Church at 4624 Old Canton Road, now known as Bellwether Church. It closed as a United Methodist Church in 2018 after coming to a financial settlement with the United Methodist Church and retained its church property.
One-hundred-eighty-nine churches will be submitted to the 2023 Session of the Mississippi Annual Conference for ratification to disaffiliate in June, Haynes said. “All others that had an exploration meeting have chosen not to disaffiliate in June,” she said.
Haynes said she could not provide a list of the churches that want to disaffiliate until after the ratifying vote is taken and the official journal for the annual conference is produced.
The date to close the disaffiliation process for the called session of annual conference in December is still open. Only 12 churches have entered the certification process, which is a step in the disaffiliation process, Haynes said.
Like Galloway United Methodist church, Broadmeadow United Methodist Church at 4419 Broadmeadow St. in Jackson wants to make sure its welcoming nature is known.
Broadmeadow has this message on its homepage:
“Broadmeadow United Methodist Church in Believing that the Holy Scriptures and the example of our Lord Jesus Christ direct us to embrace all people, Broadmeadow United Methodist Church proclaims with joy that everyone is a beloved Child of God and is welcome to full participation in all aspects of church life. We celebrate the diversity of humankind, where people of any gender identity, sexual orientation, age, economic status, faith history, marital status, race, ethnicity, or mental/physical ability are created in the image of God and worthy of God’s love and grace. We especially reach out in love to those who have experienced pain, exclusion, or discrimination from the church or society.”
Broadmeadow is a member of the Reconciling Ministries Network, which is “committed to intersectional justice across and beyond the United Methodist connection, working for the full participation of all LGBTQ+ people throughout the life and leadership of the Church.”
Not everyone wants to discuss disaffiliation.
The Rev. Eddie Rester, lead pastor at Christ United Methodist Church at 6000 Old Canton Road, the largest United Methodist congregation in Jackson, would not talk about the discord. “I’m not doing interviews on that subject at this time,” he responded via email.
Nationwide, there are a little more than 2,000 churches that have disaffiliated since 2019, according to the United Methodist News’ tally. That translates to less than 7 percent of all United Methodist churches in the U.S., Haynes said.
The withdrawals leave more than 28,500 United Methodist congregations in the U.S., Haynes said.
Stockett does not expect the issues facing the United Methodist Church, which have already challenged the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), to be over in a year.
The next General Conference will be in 2024, after having been delayed due to the global pandemic, and the issues of LGBTQ ministers and same-sex marriage are anticipated to be front and center.
Galloway has already welcomed visitors from other United Methodist churches, although “most don’t carry a sign or a badge that say I’m unhappy with my church” and members don’t probe, Stockett said.
“Others will just tell us, saying ‘This is a painful time’ or ‘I’m just looking for a place to worship and I don’t’ know where I’m going to land but I’m here with y’all today.’”
