Is This Why the UMC Continues to Hemorrhage Churches?

As the divide between the United Methodist Church and the newly formed Global Methodist Church continues to deepen over doctrinal views and acceptance of social norms, the UMC is showing the world why traditional Methodists are so upset by the denomination’s decisions.

The largest factor: they removed God from their presence.

In His place is a misguided belief system of accepting any and all sexual practices, while disregarding what the Bible specifically teaches as abominable before the Lord.

The UMC is embracing the most radical of ideologies and subjecting children to perversion and deviancy within the very walls that used to house worship, prayer and repentance before God.

This intentional deviation from the Word of God continues at the Mosaic Campus of First United Methodist (FUM) of Sherman, Texas, when they hosted an “family-friendly drag show.” It is reported that even a “furry,” someone who dresses up in anthropomorphized costumes often due to the sexual gratification it gives them, was in attendance and interacting with the children present.

As the event was getting ready to start, protesters stood outside the church waving signs and flags while children entered the “church.”

Throughout the event, counter-protesters gathered at the church, and Sherman police officers would eventually escort the men in drag and the furry performer out of the event.

It would greatly behoove these performers and UMC leadership to heed the words of Jesus in Matthew 18:6 saying: “But whoever misleads one of these little ones who believe in Me, it would be better for him to have a millstone hung about his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”

As the UMC not only accepts but welcomes this type of gathering, churches around the world are disassociating from it in massive and growing numbers. The Christian Post reported, “The Florida chapter of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, a theologically conservative Methodist group, announced … 107 churches in the state had ‘chosen to initiate the process to depart the Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church.'”

One does not have to look far as to why this would be.

Prior to that, the megachurch St. Andrew Methodist Church of Plano, also in Texas like the church hosting the drag show, voted overwhelmingly to leave the UMC over their embracing of sin and anti-godly views.

After assembling data from the churches who left the UMC in 2022 alone, UM News reported that disaffiliation from the regular process and special sessions combined totaled 1,825 churches.

In one year.

John Lomperis, United Methodist Director for The Institute on Religion and Democracy, wrote in an op-ed for the Christian Post:

“Provoked by growing numbers of pastors, bishops and entire regions of the UMC openly defying our longstanding rules against gay weddings and ‘self-avowed practicing homosexual’ ministers, a special General Conference was held in 2019. But after that conference actually strengthened these rules, liberal leaders furiously declared that they would neither leave the UMC nor respect its standards. Destructive conflict and disobedience spread. Leaders of all stripes admitted that a split was inevitable.”

With current UMC leadership openly, brazenly defying the Word of God for the deceptive ideologies of Satan, reconciliation is simply not an option now. It would take a move of repentance on a massive scale within the UMC and a turning away from the perversions that they not only allowed but welcomed into the denomination with open arms. Without that, believers still attending churches within the UMC will not find the unadulterated Word of God being preached.

Instead, an apostate church of enormous proportions has risen within the UMC.

With shocking developments such as what is occurring within the church taking place, in its wake are thousands, perhaps millions, of parishioners who are hurting spiritually, emotionally and mentally.

Regardless of what denomination a person belongs to, when a church community is fractured, even destroyed, it leaves behind people who are hurting. Terribly.

This is the time for Christians, of all backgrounds, to reach out to those who are enduring the destruction of a church they may have well loved their entire lives and now suddenly that church, that community, is no more.

Anyone who has endured a church split or closing will attest to the pain and heartache that comes with this type of life event, and no one should rejoice at what is taking place within the UMC.

These workings are that of Satan and those in leadership who gave him the right to move within the church. The answer to these spiritual issues is Christ alone and His radical forgiveness, but it is up to the leadership of the UMC and its congregants if they will humble themselves and repent for the path upon which they have set their church. {eoa}

James Lasher is Staff Writer for Charisma Media.