New, more conservative Global Methodist Church just launched

AVON, Indiana — A new Methodist denomination officially launched this month, and many of its leaders met Friday to make key decisions for the denomination’s formation.

The new denomination, the Global Methodist Church, splintered from the United Methodist Church as part of a schism primarily over LGBTQ rights. The Global Methodist Church will be a home for Methodist churches that hold more “traditionalist” stances on sexuality and gender.

The Wesleyan Covenant Association — the main organization behind the formation of the Global Methodist Church — gathered its supporters and voting delegates in the Indianapolis suburbs on Friday and Saturday to help the new denomination get off the ground.

Before the split, the UMC, with more than 6.2 million members in the U.S., according to 2020 data, was the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the nation. As of 2018, the denomination had more than 12 million members worldwide.

Here are key takeaways.

SIGNIFICANCE

The Global Methodist Church launched earlier than originally expected, casting it in a state of flux right as churches are already joining. The churches joining are those that have left the UMC.

The Wesleyan Covenant Association, an advocacy group, is meeting partly to recommend policies the Global Methodist Church’s leadership can adopt to establish a doctrinal foundation.

The Wesleyan Covenant Association issued its recommendations through a series of votes cast by the group’s legislative assembly.

WHAT DID THEY DECIDE ON?

The Wesleyan Covenant Association legislative assembly voted for a new president and on four nonbinding resolutions Friday.

The Rev. Jay Therrell, a Florida pastor, will lead the Wesleyan Covenant Association, replacing the Rev. Keith Boyette from Virginia. Boyette will take on a key leadership position in the Global Methodist Church.

“I am trusting in the amazing group … to get us across the Jordan and into where we need to be,” Therrell told the audience Friday upon his election. “I’m really sure God is for us. We are going to get there. It will be soon.”

Two of the four resolutions contained recommendations for the Global Methodist Church. One resolution forwarded along a catechism, or core denomination beliefs, and the other includes policies embodying traditionalist beliefs on sexuality and gender.

HOW DID DELIBERATIONs PLAY OUT?

Each of the measures Friday passed with more than 95% approval from the 235 delegates that comprise the Wesleyan Covenant Association’s legislative assembly. The consensus contrasts with the division between this group and others within the UMC in years prior over topics like sexuality and gender identity.

The vote on the “sexual holiness” resolution followed a presentation by a task force that studied the topic and developed the recommendations included in the approved resolution. The delegates approved an amendment adding a recommendation for the development of resources for church leadership and laity promoting the idea that “a committed marriage between one man and one woman as the optimal environment for nurturing and raising children.”