Multiple United Methodist organizations — including the Lewis Center for Church Leadership — have been tracking annual conference approval of church withdrawals.
However, the General Council on Finance and Administration collects the official data — not just of disaffiliations but also of other kinds of church closures. Most other closures happen because the congregations have been dealing with dwindling membership for some time and are no longer sustainable.
The United Methodist finance agency’s count of disaffiliation has lagged other tallies because it must wait for annual conferences to submit official reports. The agency typically updates its tallies each week under “Jurisdictional Conference Data and Reports” at gcfa.org/reports.
The official data also takes into account that some annual conference-approved church disaffiliations were not completed. That’s because in those rare cases, the churches did not fulfill their remaining financial or legal obligations to withdraw with property by the conference deadline.
As of this week, the finance agency was still waiting on information on church disaffiliations from three of the denomination’s 53 U.S. annual conferences. But at this point, the agency has a total of 9,252 disaffiliations and other closures between 2019 and last year.
During the same four years, the agency has recorded 194 new church starts. That number does not include United Methodist Fresh Expressions happening across the U.S. because conferences do not report that information to GCFA. That total also doesn’t include a number of new faith communities just getting started in the wake of disaffiliations.
Based on the data it currently has, the finance agency reports that The United Methodist Church had 22,096 U.S. churches at the end of 2023.
The finance agency also tracks U.S. church membership. But those figures are typically two years behind. As of the end of 2022, the agency said the denomination had about 5.7 million members in the U.S. GCFA is currently collecting membership data for 2023.
Wespath Benefits and Investments, the denomination’s pension agency, also has been closely monitoring disaffiliations and other church closures. The agency also has answers to frequently asked questions about disaffiliating churches’ pension obligations.
Wespath is also helping conferences that are considering restructuring in the wake of disaffiliations. At present, the agency is consulting with the Central, North and Northwest Texas conferences as they plan to unify into one conference by January 2025.
Leaders of both GCFA and Wespath hope that United Methodists, especially General Conference delegates, will use the information both agencies provide as they make decisions about the denomination’s future.
Tony Prestipino, Wespath’s director of plan sponsor relations, especially hopes the data can help as United Methodists discuss district boundaries, conference boundaries and the number of bishops going forward.
“The UMC is still going to have a very strong ministry,” Prestipino said. “It’s just going to be different.”
Return to main story, Heartbreak, hope follow season of church exits
Contact Heather Hahn at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free Daily or Friday Digests