Leadership in your congregation believes that during the limited window of possibility which exists until December 31, 2023 the time is right to disaffiliate from The United Methodist Church under the criteria specified by the Book of Discipline’s new Paragraph 2553. The recommendations in the report of the Disaffiliation Task Force to the 2022 Wisconsin Annual Conference include multiple steps involving the local church and the United Methodist-appointed pastoral leadership that shall be taken before your congregation votes on their future relationship to our denomination.
Step 1. Initial conversation: When a) a District Superintendent learns that a local church is interested in and meets the criteria for disaffiliation under ¶2553 or b) local church leadership inquires, for example, about disaffiliation, information about the Global Methodist Church, another evangelical denomination, or independent status, the District Superintendent will communicate with the pastor and/or lay leadership and offer to come for a meeting to share the process. The initial contact/inquiry must come from at least one of the following: pastor; lay leader; or council/board chair no later than September 1, 2022.
Step 2. Initial meeting with Local Church Leadership: No later than October 1, 2022, the District Superintendent and members of the Conference Disaffiliation Discernment Team will meet with local church leadership to listen to their concerns, to share about the identity and the “value” of the Wisconsin Conference, and to share about the disaffiliation process. The Disaffiliation Discernment Team will come to the meeting with an estimated payment amount per the required terms.
Step 3. Follow up conversation with the pastor: Around the same time the initial meeting with church leadership takes place, but no later than December 1, 2022, the District Superintendent will also have an informal conversation with the pastor to discern where the pastor is in his/her alignment with the congregation’s desires, his/her leadership role in the departure process, and the implications of the church’s decision on his/her future in ministry.
Step 4. Period of Discernment: To avoid rash decisions and to ensure fully informed decisions are made, there will be a minimum two-month Discernment Period following the “Initial Meeting with Local Church Leadership” before moving forward with the disaffiliation process. During that two-month period the Conference Disaffiliation Discernment Team will hold at least one follow up meeting to which all professing members of the local church will be invited to listen further, answer questions that have emerged, and to continue discerning if the local church desires to move forward with the disaffiliation process.
There will be guidelines for this congregational discernment phase provided by the District Superintendent.
Step 5. Formal Request to Explore Disaffiliation: Following the two-month Discernment Period, a local church wishing to continue the disaffiliation process must submit a “Local Church Request to Explore Disaffiliation under ¶2553” application form, including an accompanying written statement on detailed reasons of conscience justifying its disaffiliation due to:
- “change[s] in the requirements or provisions of the Book of Discipline related to the practice of homosexuality or the ordination or marriage of self-avowed practicing homosexuals as resolved and adopted by the 2019 General Conference” or
- “the actions or inactions of its annual conference related to these issues….”
The statement must explain how the current Discipline or actions or inactions of the annual conference have affected the mission and unity of the congregation and how this has led to the congregation’s request to disaffiliate. The local church shall identify any contemporaneous evidence supporting its explanation, such as meeting minutes, public statements of its members, or results of surveys taken of members. The Wisconsin Conference Disaffiliation Coordinator must receive the “Local Church Request to Explore Disaffiliation under ¶2553” application form, and accompanying statement no later than December 1, 2022.
Step 6. Determination of Eligibility for Disaffiliation under ¶2553: The Conference Board of Trustees, in consultation with the Extended Cabinet, will review the “Local Church Request to Explore Disaffiliation under ¶2553” application and notify the local church within 30 days of receipt of the application whether or not it meets the requirement for disaffiliation of ¶2553.1.
Step 7. Pastor communicates his/her intentions: Pastor notifies the District Superintendent in writing of his/her intention to remain with The United Methodist Church, retire, or surrender credentials in order to continue to lead the local church after disaffiliation. The District Superintendent must receive this notification by December 1, 2022.
Step 8. Formal Application for Disaffiliation: After the period of discernment and exploration of the possibility of disaffiliation, if the church desires to continue the disaffiliation process, the church must submit to the Wisconsin Conference Disaffiliation Coordinator the “Formal Application for Disaffiliation under ¶2553” form, and the required documentation specified below, no later than January 15, 2023.
Step 9. Required Documentation: At the same time the local church submits the “Formal Application for Disaffiliation under ¶2553” form, it must submit specified documentation of the church financial accounts, debts, endowments, deeds, contracts, leases, loans, Wisconsin Conference grants, cemetery ownership, facility use agreements, trustee’s officers, successor church name, real property legal description, insurance policies and the professing membership role.
Step 10. Request for Church Conference: By January 15, 2023, the local church submits a letter requesting a church conference for the purpose of considering disaffiliation from The United Methodist Church. In the letter, the local church should indicate that they understand the estimated “costs” of disaffiliation (including the non-financial costs) that the District Superintendent and Conference Disaffiliation Discernment Team have shared with them. The District Superintendent must schedule the church conference within 120 days. All church conferences must comply with all requirements of ¶248 and ¶2553.
It will be upon the completion of these ten steps that the District Superintendent will authorize and preside over a church conference to vote on a request to disaffiliate. A 2/3 vote of the professing membership present at the church conference is needed to support a disaffiliation request. Neither absentee voting nor voting by non-members is allowed.
An involved process, but authorizing waiver of the trust clause detailed in ¶2501 of The Book of Discipline has not occurred previously in The United Methodist Church or its predecessors. Departing the denomination that established, nurtured and provided pastoral leadership for congregations now considering leaving is a step to be entered into only after due diligence by all parties involved.