A denomination founded as a theologically conservative alternative to the United Methodist Church has grown to include 6,000 member congregations worldwide.
The Global Methodist Church, which was launched on May 1, 2022, announced on its Facebook page last Friday that it had reached the 6,000-member church milestone.
“That’s 6,000 pulpits preaching the Gospel,” stated the GMC. “6,000 altars where hearts are renewed. … 6,000 congregations worshiping in a variety of nations and languages.”
“Join us in praying for the movement as we continue to welcome existing churches and plant new ones to spread the love of Christ to our communities and beyond.”
The formation of the GMC came in response to the decades-long divisive debate over whether the UMC should amend its Book of Discipline to allow the blessing of same-sex marriages and the ordination of those in same-sex sexual relationships.
Although efforts to amend the Book of Discipline at General Conference always failed, many theological liberals within the UMC refused to follow or enforce the polarizing rules.
In January 2020, a group of 16 UMC leaders from diverse theological backgrounds announced a proposed separation protocol that would provide a pathway for churches that wanted to disaffiliate from the Mainline denomination over theological differences.
The protocol would also set aside funds to create a theologically conservative denomination for those congregations that were interested in launching such a church body.
While the protocol was scheduled to be considered at the 2020 UMC General Conference, the gathering was postponed multiple times due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.
In March 2022, GMC organizers announced that they were launching their denomination that May, having decided to no longer wait for the postponed General Conference to approve the protocol.
Over the next couple of years, thousands of congregations would disaffiliate from the UMC over the ongoing debate about LGBT issues, with most of them voting to join the GMC.
By January of last year, GMC Transitional Connectional Officer Keith Boyette told The Christian Post that his denomination had more than 4,200-member congregations.
“The current member congregations are predominantly former UMC congregations, but we do have member congregations that have come from other denominations, or who were previously nondenominational or independent, or new church plants that have already been recognized as member congregations,” he explained at the time.
Months later, at last year’s UMC General Conference, delegates would finally vote overwhelmingly to amend the Book of Discipline to remove the rules, though the changes still allowed for regional bodies and local congregations to continue enforcing them.
