Future visions
Bishops Tracy Smith Malone, Tom Berlin and Mande Muyombo (l to r) discuss the denomination's future during the "United Methodist Family Meeting." (Photo by David Burke)
Great Plains Conference | Oct. 2, 2023
LEAWOOD, Kansas – Three bishops shared their feelings about the future of the denomination during a “United Methodist Family Meeting” Sept. 28 during the Leadership Institute at Resurrection, a United Methodist Church.
East Ohio Bishop Tracy Smith Malone, Florida Bishop Tom Berlin and Bishop Mande Muyombo of the Congo Central Conference were interviewed by Rev. Adam Hamilton, founding pastor of Resurrection.
Hamilton said the night was for a reevaluation of the denomination after about 20% of United Methodist Churches voted to disaffiliate over the past few years. He said he had faith in the denomination.
“We have a good Gospel,” Hamilton said. “I think it has good bones; it has a good theology. I believe in this church.”
The main point of contention in the disaffiliations were for the rights of LGBTQ pastors to serve in the church and for all clergy to have the rights to perform same-sex marriages.
Hamilton said detractors claimed the remaining United Methodist churches didn’t believe in sacraments, the Holy Trinity, the virgin birth and the resurrection.
“I’m like, ‘Great, but tell them the real reason why,’” they are disaffiliating, he said.
“We’re not changing our doctrines,” Hamilton added. “Even if we could, why would we want to?”
After disaffiliation, according to figures Hamilton shared, there are 23,500 United Methodist churches in the country, with 3,000 of the disaffiliating churches joining the Global Methodist Church and another 3,200 becoming independent or joining another denomination.
Bishop Malone, who was elected in 2016, said votes to disaffiliate came at the beginning of the East Ohio Annual Conference session and that petitions for justice ministries and reconciliation that had been rejected at previous conferences were approved.
“It did truly feel like a revival,” she said. “There was a different air in the space. It felt like everyone could breathe.”
She said it made for a new attitude in East Ohio.
“I feel we are more united now than we have been for some years. To God be the glory,” Bishop Malone said.
Bishop Berlin, who began Jan. 1. 2023, said the loss of disaffiliated churches was beneficial.
“We have been able to release people who weren’t aligned to what we wanted them to be,” he said.
New church
Bishops Tracy Malone and Tom Berlin talk about those who have gone against United Methodists. (Great Plains Conference Photo by David Burke)
Bishop Muyombo, elected to the episcopacy in 2017, said that about 80% of the churches he oversees in the North Katanga, Tanganyika and Tanzania conferences are expected to remain with The United Methodist Church.
He refuted the efforts by traditionalists who were campaigning at the special General Conference in 2019 to sway the African vote.
“Africans have brains; Africans are educated,” Bishop Muyombo said. “We believe in Jesus, and we read the Bible.”
The Congo, he added, has the second largest membership in the denomination, following the United States.
Bishop Malone said the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters and The Connectional Table were working with the writers of the Christmas Covenant — created in 2019 to promote connectional relationships, respect for contextual ministry settings, and legislative equality for regional bodies of the church — to collaborate on legislation that would either be presented to the 2024 General Conference or a possible session in 2026.
Bishop Berlin said proposals may be developed for a Commission on the 21st Century Church that may be approved at the 2024 General Conference and begin its work in earnest in 2026.
He said the next General Conference and perhaps the special session would be time for self-reflection for United Methodists.
“Our denomination has to do a reset and a realignment,” he said. “It’s a huge opportunity, friends.”
Bishop Malone, president-designate of the Council of Bishops, said she is aware of a new energy in the denomination.
“There’s this renewed vitality and understanding about what it means to be a United Methodist,” she said.
Hamilton asked the two American bishops if the denomination would return to the Book of Discipline created in 1968, the first year of United Methodism, where homosexuality was not mentioned.
Bishop Malone said she endorsed “removing all prohibitive language.”
Bishop Berlin said the changes would mean each “region can do what fits their cultural contexts.”
“There is a great hope that in 2024 we will get there,” Bishop Malone added. “We hold out hope for that, but don’t give up hope.
“If we don’t get everything we want in 2024, believe that 2026 is just around the corner.”
David Burke
David Burke serves as a content specialist for the Great Plains Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. This article is republished with permission from the conference website.