COASTAL OBSERVER

St. Paul’s Waccamaw will host its final United Methodist worship service on June 30.

On July 1, St. Paul’s will officially become a member of the Global Methodist Church.

“As far as the service and as far as the theology, there will be no difference,” the Rev. J.R. Virgin said. “Most of the differences between the United Methodist Church and the Global Methodist Church are things that happen behind the scenes, logistical type things rather than worship and theology and doctrine.”

The church, which began holding services in 1986, will become one of more than 7,600 congregations that have left the he United Methodist Church in the last four years. That’s about a quarter of United Methodist churches in the United States.

The biggest issue that has split churches is whether to allow openly gay pastors to serve, and same-sex marriages to be performed. The frequent changing of pastors is also a complaint, along with the high price of apportionments, which is the money congregations have to pay to the United Methodist Church.

St. Paul’s started the process of “disaffiliation” last April.   The church’s council created a “discernment team” that was tasked with studying both sides of disaffiliation to make sure all the information that was released was factual.

“We wanted to be very careful that we were presenting the truth to the congregation,” Virgin said.

The council also voted to enter a “season of discernment” from Labor Day to Thanksgiving.

“We wanted to be done before Advent and not talking about these kinds of things and have time to worship and pray,” Virgin said. 

After a series of town hall meetings to give congregants a chance to get information and ask questions, a vote was taken in January. Seventy-four percent of those in attendance voted to disaffiliate. Under United Methodist Church rules, only church members in attendance could vote.

Virgin said people have told him they were grateful to get to vote.

“They were thankful that they were able to talk about it and pray about it and vote on it and be able to make a decision for the future,” he said.

One of the requirements of disaffiliation is that the church has to buy its property from the United Methodist Church.

That means St. Paul’s has to raise $1.03 million and deposit it in an escrow account by the end of May. In the first four weeks of fundraising $100,000 has been donated.

Virgin said the church will tap into an endowment fund and secure a mortgage on the property. 

Methodism dates back to the teaching of John and Charles Wesley in the 18th century, but the United Methodist Church wasn’t formed until 1968 when the Evangelical United Brethren and Methodist churches merged.

The Global Methodist Church was founded in 2022 by congregations that had left the United Methodist Church. The new group now counts more than 4,600 congregations as members. 

By adhering to the teachings of John Wesley, the denomination will not accept openly gay pastors or allow same-sex marriages to be performed in sanctuaries.

The doctrine and theology of the Global Methodist and United Methodist churches are nearly identical.

Differences include lower apportionments and individual churches own their properties.

“Say St. Paul’s down the road decides we don’t really want to be Global Methodists any more,” Virgin said. “They don’t have to pay to get out. They just vote and leave.”

Once the congregation approved disaffiliation, members were given the choice by the discernment team of remaining a Methodist congregation or becoming an independent church.

Virgin said Methodism made a lot of sense.

“They saw some drawbacks in being an independent church, especially in not being held accountable by a larger body,” he added. “An independent church can kind of make up their own rules as they go. That can be dangerous, depending on who is in charge.”

Since the disaffiliation vote Virgin thinks St. Paul’s has gained more members than it has lost. He said attendance has increased, as has tithing.

“There’s been kind of a changeover,” he said. “There’s some folks who were kind of waiting to see where we landed.”

Some of those who left were “progressive leaning,” he added.

“That’s OK. We all see things differently,” he said. “It’s the typical lifecycle of a church. There’s always people coming in and out.”

Virgin has been pastor at the church since July of 2022. He plans on continuing to be the spiritual leader after June 30.

What’s important to him is that people go to church; whether that’s St. Paul’s or somewhere else.

“If you’re not being fed here, please find where you are. It’s not about the church you go to. It’s about serving Christ and doing the best you can,” he said. “I’m always much more focused on kingdom building than I am on building the church. That’s our work as Christians and the church just plays a role in it.”