Texas Megachurch Relents, Follows UMC Rules to Exit Denomination

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One of the largest United Methodist congregations in Texas that had sought to circumvent the denomination's process on disaffiliation has relented and allowed its members to vote on exit, as well as agreeing to pay the required departure fees to retain its property.

The North Texas Annual Conference issued a statement Feb. 22 announcing that close to 900 members of the 6,500-member St. Andrew United Methodist Church voted Feb. 21 by a 98 percent margin to leave the worldwide United Methodist denomination. In addition, the statement said, St. Andrew will comply with the UMC's rule that exiting congregations pay their regional units two years' financial contributions known as apportionments, along with its portion of two years' clergy pensions.

The provision, known as Paragraph 2553, also requires a two-thirds supermajority approval vote by church members "present and voting." That's how some 800 members made the decision on St. Andrew's future for all 6,500 members.

St. Andrew's pastor, the Rev. Arthur Jones, and its executive committee chair Kathy King, shocked both regional and church-wide leaders Sept. 29, 2022, by announcing that the church in Plano, Texas, north of Dallas, would leave the UMC. Furthermore, they said, St. Andrew would leave with its property without following the process laid down by the 2019 General Conference, the denomination's international legislative assembly.

At that time Rev. Jones and Ms. King said the church's leaders determined its property was not subject to The United Methodist Church’s trust clause, which holds that all local churches' property is held "in trust" for the regional units that typically fund their establishment. How they determined St. Andrew's legal position regarding its property hasn't been detailed by church leaders. With rare exceptions, courts have upheld the trust clause in lawsuits brought by churches seeking to leave the denomination without paying for their property.

The September 2022 announcement took United Methodist leaders, including then-Bishop Michael McKee, by surprise. The resulting firestorm of criticism against St. Andrew grew to such a point that Bishop McKee issued a letter instructing North Texas clergy and members to stop talking about the St. Andrew situation because confidential discussions were under way.

The North Texas Conference's Feb. 22 statement said:

"Since October, St. Andrew’s members have engaged in discernment work, including a Feb. 15 informational session with the church’s pastors and a representative from the North Texas Conference. Last night, St. Andrew’s members concluded this discernment period, gathering to vote on the issue of disaffiliation per the BOD (Book of Discipline). The vote passed with 98.6% of those in attendance voting to disaffiliate (859 for, 12 opposed).

"Given the outcome of this vote, along with St. Andrew’s commitment to pay the necessary apportionments and pension liabilities and to honor the North Texas Conference’s terms for disaffiliation, Rev. Debra Hobbs Mason, North Central District Superintendent, and Rev. Andy Lewis, Assistant to the Bishop, affirm that St. Andrew UMC has met the requirements for disaffiliation and fully anticipate that when the North Texas Conference Board of Trustees meets on February 23, they will confirm St. Andrew's inclusion in the list of disaffiliating churches for Annual Conference approval at the March 4 Special Called Session."

How much St. Andrew will pay to leave the UMC will be decided by the conference board of trustees at its Feb. 23 meeting. Conference communications director Pam Hughes said, "there's nothing to say beyond what's in the statement."

St. Andrew's departures fees may be kept confidential even after they're calculated by to the apportionment formula assessed by the North Texas Conference. Given St. Andrew's membership size and the value of its property in upscale Plano, its exit fees can be expected to total hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions. Another dissident church roughly St. Andrew's size, Mt. Bethel in Marietta, Ga., paid the North Georgia Annual Conference some $13 million to leave with its property after the conference filed a lawsuit.

Until it's formally severed at the March 4 special session, St. Andrew is the second largest church in the North Texas Conference and the seventh largest United Methodist congregation in the state. However, St. Andrew's leaders have said the congregation will not join the breakaway Global Methodist Church, started in May 2022 by dissident "traditionalists," despite its pastor's familial ties to a proponent of the new denomination.

Arthur Jones' father, Scott J. Jones, retired from the UMC in January and was received by the Global Methodist Church as a bishop less than two weeks after his retirement. His open advocacy for disaffiliation in the Houston-based Texas Annual Conference where he was the episcopal leader drew such criticism that a resolution to have him investigated for violating church law was adopted in November by the South Central Jurisdictional Conference. However, Jones retired before an inquiry could begin. This month the House of Wesleyan Studies at Baylor University's George Truett Seminary announced that Jones was joining its faculty. Jones was a professor of evangelism at UMC-related Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology in Dallas when he was elected a United Methodist bishop.

Since 2019, some 1,800 local churches out of 30,000 U.S. United Methodist congregations have exited the denomination. United Methodists churches are found throughout sub-Saharan Africa and in Europe and the Philippines.

Cynthia B. Astle is a veteran journalist who has covered the worldwide United Methodist Church at all levels for more than 30 years. She serves as editor of United Methodist Insight, an online journal she founded in 2011.