Two annual conferences have adopted policies to enable churches that disaffiliated from The UMC to reaffiliate. Others are in the process of developing them.
The 2024 General Conference received nearly 30 petitions to request that the disaffiliation provisions of the expired Paragraph 2553 be extended in some way. Instead, it deleted the paragraph. How did this happen, and what will happen now that disaffiliation is no longer an option?
The 2024 General Conference adopted a thoroughly revised set of Social Principles, the result of listening and feedback across the whole of the church worldwide over a period of more than a decade. Part 4 of Ask The UMC’s “The UMC really is …” series looks at why this was necessary, how the process unfolded and how the Revised Social Principles better reflect the voices of the whole of the denomination, helping it address the world with closer to one voice.
