COASTAL OBSERVER

A ruling by the Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church last year seems to have stopped the process of “disaffiliation” which thousands of individual churches have used to leave the faith.

However, a group of parishioners at Belin Memorial United Methodist Church tried once again this week to get Belin’s Church Council to allow parishioners a vote on whether they wanted the church, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, to seek a way to leave.

A resolution that would have allowed a “binding” vote on whether to remain a United Methodist Church was defeated on Monday by a Church Council vote of 27-23 after a lengthy debate with council members speaking for and against it. 

David Hobson spoke against the resolution, although he said the congregation, not the Church Council, should have decided whether to leave the United Methodist Church.

“I fear that our Belin congregation would be drawn into arguments that would split us,” Hobson said. “We would end up fighting each other, being angry with each other rather than listening to and caring for each other.”

People on both sides of the issue “strongly believe they are following what God wants them to do,” Hobson added.

Morgan Jones, who was for the resolution, said she does not believe the direction of the United Methodist Church is in line with scripture.

“I am standing up today for the other families attending this church who are in the dark about the progressive ideology of the UMC because they will absolutely affect Belin at some point,” she said. 

Jones loves Belin, not because it is United Methodist but because of “the Biblical foundations it was founded on and the people in this community who have nurtured it for years and years,” she added.

Hannah Cromley called the resolution “misleading” and said it was causing confusion.

Cromley reminded her fellow council members of the vow they continue to take to support the church through “their prayers, their presence, their gifts, their service and their witness.”

“You are asking me to break our law and I will not do that,” she said.

Scott Bearden said he was grateful to be a member of the Church Council, which gave him the right to decide the future of the church and he wanted all the members of the church to have that opportunity.

“I fully acknowledge the ramification of the vote and what the opposing outcome would mean to this church,” Bearden said. “However, as much as it pains me, I believe this congregation needs closure. There will be no further opportunities.”

The vote was taken despite the fact that the Church Council was told by Steve Brown, superintendent of the Marion District, at the beginning of its meeting that the resolution was “out of order to be acted upon” and if approved would not be recognized by the United Methodist Church.

After Monday’s decision by the Church Council, some people told the Rev. Will Malambri, who has been Belin’s senior pastor since 2019, that they will find other churches.

“If it can’t be at Belin, then I sincerely wish them well and hope they find the right ministry setting for them,” he said.

This was not the first time supporters of disaffiliation within Belin have tried to get their message out and rally other supporters.

In November 2023, someone not on Belin’s staff got access to the names and contact information for the church’s congregants and sent an email from “The Friends to Preserve Belin.”

Paul Gardner, the church administrator, wrote in an email that was not an “intrusion or breach” of the church computer system.

Supporters of disaffiliation have now adopted the name “Belin Membership Committee,” which is not an official committee of the church, and sent emails from info@bmcmisc.org, which is not the email address of the church.

The unauthorized group sent an email at the end of December describing a plan that “could allow the congregation to separate from the United Methodist Church.” 

“It’s painful to disagree especially on matters this important because these opinions and thoughts are held close by people,” Malambri said. “To want us to find a path forward together is always the desire so it’s sad that that can’t be fully met.”

More than 7,600 congregations have left the United Methodist Church in the last four years, including about a quarter of United Methodist churches in the United States, including St. Paul’s in Litchfield. St. Paul’s  joined the Global Methodist Church on July 1.

Those churches based their decision on a paragraph about closing churches in the United Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline. The Judicial Council ruled that paragraph can no longer be used.

The biggest issue that split churches was whether to allow openly gay pastors to serve and same-sex marriages to be performed. 

The United Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline calls homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.” But it also “implores” churches and families not to “reject or condemn” homosexuals.

A survey on disaffiliation found Belin respondents evenly split on the topic of homosexuality.

“We’ve had a congregation feeling strongly on both ends of the spectrum,” Malambri said.

The practice of regularly moving pastors between churches is also source of complaint, along with the high price of apportionments, which is  the money congregations have to pay to the United Methodist Church.

Belin has been in and out of the “discernment” process for the last two years.

The process, which is required before making a decision to disaffiliate, called for at least 30 days of prayer during which time the church’s property was appraised and its financial obligations clarified. Once the financial cost of disaffiliation was released to the congregation a vote was taken and at least two-thirds of voters had to choose to leave the United Methodist Church. 

Under the resolution Belin’s Church Council rejected, only a majority of votes would be needed.

Belin’s Church Council chose not to enter the process in January 2023, but then voted to enter it in October 2023. 

The Church Council voted to leave the process in November 2023 after it determined it wasn’t the right time.

After months of education sessions, prayer and discussion, the Church Council voted to enter the process again last August.

The ruling last October by the Judicial Council, which Malambri called the “Supreme Court of the United Methodist Church,” ended the process again.