The 2024 General Conference was asked to consider nearly 30 proposals seeking to extend or amend the provisions of Paragraph 2553, all with the effect of permitting some form of disaffiliation to continue.
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The overwhelming consensus of the subcommittee that first processed this legislation was to reject all of it in a bundle in favor of a briefer petition, #21087, which read “Delete ¶2553 from the Book of Discipline.” The vote of the entire conferences legislative committee 62-12, two votes shy of appearing on a consent calendar. The final vote in plenary was 519-203.
With Paragraph 2553 already expired, disaffiliation, as such, will not be continued in The United Methodist Church through the coming quadrennium (2025-2028).
While disaffiliation is over, “separation,” “disassociation” or “departure” on terms quite similar to Paragraph 2553 have continued in some conferences.
These annual conferences provided their own “extension” to Paragraph 2553 to enable local churches to make decisions based on what the 2024 General Conference actually did rather than what they feared it might do. In every case, these “extensions” were grounded on the provisions of Paragraph 2549.3.b. Per this paragraph, an annual conference board of trustees can assume control over the property and assets of a local church that has become unable or unwilling to function as a United Methodist congregation. The paragraph also provides for the closure of those congregations by action of its annual conference.
These conferences repurposed the policies their trustees had developed for implementing Paragraph 2553 by either directly or with some further modifications applying them to how the trustees would manage transfer and closure under Paragraph 2549. Ask The UMC is aware of at least seven annual conferences that had previously announced plans to proceed in this way after the expiration of Paragraph 2553: South Georgia, Alabama-West Florida, Rio Texas, Illinois Great Rivers, Mississippi, South Carolina and Holston. One other conference, Kentucky, approved a plan to do so at its annual conference in 2024.
However, two of these annual conferences — Kentucky and Alabama-West Florida — have also brought questions to the Judicial Council about whether or how Paragraph 2549 may be used in this way given the action of the General Conference to remove disaffiliation entirely from the Discipline. The Judicial Council will take up their questions as part of its fall 2024 docket when it meets in late October 2024.
These two conferences and the Holston Conference have announced they will not process requests for departure or disassociation until after the Judicial Council rules on the matter. South Georgia appears poised to move ahead with processing a final round of departures on Aug. 17, 2024. Illinois Great Rivers and Rio Texas have not, to date, stated publicly how they will proceed. Mississippi and South Carolina will not be finalizing departures until their 2025 annual conference.
Disaffiliation is ended. Whether or how further separations may be processed remains to be seen.
excerpt from a story by Taylor W. Burton Edwards, director of Ask The UMC
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