John Wesley was thinking about church property when he wrote the first trust clause in 1750.| United Methodist News Service
The United Methodist Church’s splintering has left many feeling wounded. But churchgoers, pastors and seminary professors are finding different ways to mend after hurtful battles over church exits.| United Methodist News Service
U.S. conferences are calculating how much a church must pay if it leaves under legislation approved by General Conference 2019. The big cost will be pensions.| United Methodist News Service
Churches in the nation of Estonia have completed the needed steps to leave The United Methodist Church and form their own denomination.| United Methodist News Service
General Conference has now passed much of the legislation that aims to give the church’s different geographic regions equal standing in decision-making authority.| United Methodist News Service
Quietly, General Conference is making historic changes to The United Methodist Church’s policies related to LGBTQ people.| United Methodist News Service
General Conference normally holds staggered elections for the church court’s lay and clergy membership, but the pandemic has thrown off that schedule and required a reset.| United Methodist News Service
UMNews is the official news agency of The United Methodist Church and a ministry of the General Commission on Communication.| United Methodist News Service
The Rev. Rob Renfroe says Good News and its partner the Wesleyan Covenant Association will be at General Conference, but with a limited agenda focused mainly on extending disaffiliation rights.| United Methodist News Service
The Rev. Mark R. Holland, Mainstream UMC director, says General Conference should not add to the Book of Discipline a “top-down, uniform” exit path from the denomination.| United Methodist News Service
A European United Methodist responds to a recent commentary by the Rev. Rob Renfroe, president of the traditionalist caucus Good News.| United Methodist News Service
Disaffiliations approved by annual conferences| United Methodist News Service
El Niño-induced drought has left millions facing hunger. The United Methodist Church’s efforts to boost food security in the region also suffered a huge blow, with church mission farms seeing major crop losses.| United Methodist News Service
The four annual conferences in Russia and its neighboring countries are leaving to form the autonomous Christian Methodist Church.| United Methodist News Service
Juju makers fled when the first Methodist evangelist came to this West African country in 1914.| United Methodist News Service
In an emotional morning, General Conference has eliminated the ban on “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy. Following the vote at break, delegates and observers sang hymns in joy.| United Methodist News Service
Proposal maintains The United Methodist Church but provides $25 million for traditionalist churches to start new denomination.| United Methodist News Service
General Conference delegates deleted the church disaffiliation policy, passed the last of the regionalization petitions and required annual conferences to set a reaffiliation plan for churches that want to return.| United Methodist News Service
General Conference delegates supported a revision of the Social Principles that deletes the phrase “the practice of homosexuality… is incompatible with Christian teaching.” That phrase has been part of church teachings since 1972.| United Methodist News Service
The Rev. Lovett H. Weems Jr. argues that those committed to another denomination should not try to influence decision-making at the upcoming United Methodist General Conference. He also says The United Methodist Church should follow John Wesley’s example of striving for unity, even where there’s disagreement on important matters.| United Methodist News Service
The traditionalist groups plan to be active at the upcoming United Methodist General Conference, despite having aligned with the Global Methodist Church.| United Methodist News Service