Posted on 08/09/2023 10:48:08 PM PDT by Morgana
Earlier this year, the seven United Methodist churches in Amarillo, Texas, voted to leave the country’s second-largest Protestant denomination over issues of homosexuality and gender identity.
Since 2019, in a process dragged out by the COVID-19 pandemic and denominational infighting, hundreds of churches across Texas — and thousands across the U.S. — have opted to disaffiliate from the half-century-old denomination through a protocol that allows them to keep their real estate and pay off their clergy pension obligations.
But the departure of all seven UMC churches in this city of 200,000 made it the largest city in the nation known to be without a UMC church and left nowhere for those who felt an allegiance to the denomination to go.
The Rev. Margie McNeir, an 83-year-old UMC minister who had retired last year from the city’s oldest church, Polk Street Methodist, came out of retirement to spearhead the launch of a new UMC church.
In February, after the existing UMC churches in Amarillo had voted to leave or would do so soon, McNeir, along with another retired pastor, held a meeting to see how many people among the seven churches wanted to remain with the United Methodists. Less than a month later, they held their first service in a senior living home. By the following Sunday, it became clear that the remainers were going to need more space
Since April, the group has been meeting at St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church in Amarillo. On June 4, the group was officially chartered as Amarillo United Methodist Church.
It made sense that the newest UMC church in Amarillo would rise out of Polk Street Methodist. Established in 1888, the church stands out for its delicate stained glass, intricate moldings and Gothic-inspired architecture. Members describe it as the flagship Methodist church in its corner of Texas.
“Polk Street has a long, long, long history as the founding Christian Church in Amarillo, Texas, and I had been a part of that church since I was a 10-year-old,” said Gary Pitner, now 67, who helped organize the new church.
Pitner, who had been a member at Polk Street for 57 years, said its disaffiliation was “a very painful process, for all of us.”
McNeir began attending the church after moving to Amarillo in 2014 with her husband. A 1984 graduate of Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology, McNeir had served as a pastor at two churches in North Texas before retiring in 2002. Three years after she arrived in Amarillo, Polk Street Methodist asked her to join the staff as the executive pastor.
McNeir, who said she never expected to “fail retirement” so many times, came out of retirement again this spring, after Polk Street decided to leave the UMC. McNeir led services until the Rev. Robert Burke joined this summer, and McNeir retired for her third time.
The 3-month-old Amarillo United Methodist Church is growing, with more than 150 people attending its 9 a.m. service, with nearly half under the age of 60, but the congregation is still getting organized. “We barely put a leadership council together just for the chartering service,” Burke said.
Burke says members are working to create their own identity while merging different churches, but members are still grieving their buildings and church friends left behind.
“For me as a pastor at a county seat church before this, trying to get people to do stuff is sometimes challenging,” Burke said. “But here, (people ask), ‘What can I do to help out?’ Everybody’s eager to try to jump in and do their part and use their gifts and graces to serve the church, and I really haven’t seen that for a long time.”
My humble thoughts. Note, I’m not a Methodist...but had a relative who was a minister in the system.
After visiting the relative and sitting in their church, I just came to note that the place had space for 800 folks, and on a Easter Sunday, they were barely at 200 people there. It was about 50-percent over the age of 50.
I noted this to the relative, and this ‘dying-out’ population was identified as a major nation-wide issue. So the leadership of the church (nationally) felt that they needed to attach themselves to certain topics (pro-migrant, pro-LGTBQ, pro-environment, etc). In certain words...it had to be a fairly liberal church to attract young participants.
The further this message/brand carried...the less interested that the older members were. So they were dissolving membership at a healthy rate, in hopes of attracting younger members.
I’m not going to ‘dump’ on any religious group...they can go and morph into anything they desire. But in this group’s case, the longer they linger in this got-to-change mentality and fail to sell to the bulk of membership...more likely they will dissolve away into nothing.
There are memes of all sorts these days showing the "trendy" people who rush to accept "the latest thing," and these seem to capture the essence of the futility you so well describe. "Got-to-change" mentalities lure people not only into that "next thing," but in doing so away from long traditions and to the withering of cultures and identities.
It boils down to the postmodern streams of tearing away at society for that "new" man.
It has been a long game, serving little purpose ultimately. John Dewey longed for that "new man," as did the Frankfurt school in trying to enliven Marxism by other means after its failures.
A congregation of any sort which does not reproduce its next and coming generations is a congregation destined for extinction. Between abortion and homosexuality and pedophilia, the attack on children -- the ONLY future -- is so complete tjat the can be only a predicted future. As you so correctly say, and for simple demographic reasons:
"....they will dissolve away into nothing."
It took 600 years but this is the predictable outcome of the “Reformation.”
Perhaps. But how do you explain what is going on in the Roman Catholic Church? Not that far behind the Methodists.
The first groups that came out of the Reformation: the Lutherans and then the Calvinists have already collapsed in many ways.
The second group - the Unitarians and the Anglicans - have died and are dying rapidly respectively.
The 17th century creation of the Baptists have died out except for the Southern Baptists.
Now we have the 19th century American created religions like the Seventh Day Adventists, the Jehovah’s witnesees, the Mormons, the Christian scientists who are starting to die out
The Church is wounded, but thankfully nowhere near the state of the Methodists.
Methodism arose in the late 1700s and well, now 200 years later...
The naparc churches (calvinists) see naparc.org code to ie to grow. We are not “dying.”
Influx of new peoples from around the world have brought the
change in religious beliefs. The world is not isolated in today's
enviorioment like it was back when Columbus sailed the ocean
blue in 1492.
New inhabitants became the force that makes the change. It will
continue until the end of times. Three score and ten and we are
history. Others follow and change is inevitable. Just look at the
influx of new peoples on a daily basis coming to this land. We
can't even secure the southern border along the Rio Grande.
You are probably correct.
I went to my Grandmother’s Methodist church as a child and it was not like this.
UMC leadership in the US lost its way when it emphasized the need to affirm everyone as they are and reject any moral standards. For many years Conference leadership has been waging all out war against pastors who insist upon the primacy of a moral life. Sexual deviance has been elevated to a sacrament. Bishops are appointed based on their commitment to such aberrant social trends as transitioning, abortion, homosexuality, pedophilia, and Marxism.
Are the people joining this new UMC church really surprised their former congregants did not want to say in this denomination with things like this going on? https://spectator.org/methodist-church-first-drag-queen-pastor-god-is-nothing/
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