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Table Of Content

• United Methodist Church begins reorganization over LGBTQ+ issues
• Reformed Churches in Charlotte NC
• United Methodists begin to reverse longstanding anti-LGBTQ policies
• What lifted ordination ban means for one Ohio pastor
• United Methodists lift 40-year ban on LGBTQ+ clergy, marking historic shift for the church

Bishop Tracy Smith Malone says she was overjoyed to be presiding at Thursday's regionalization vote, which comes after years of strife within the denomination. "We get to be the workers in the vineyard, but this is God's vision." A big concern in recent years has been how there appears to be a will to lift bans on LGBTQ+ clergy and same-sex marriage in the U.S, but that sentiment is not widespread in other parts of the world, especially in Africa. The proposal, called regionalization, essentially would allow different geographic regions — North America, Europe, Africa, and the Philippines — to make their own rules about ministry. “I just hope that this general conference will pass legislation that enables [churches] to disaffiliate and enables those of us in the United States who were blocked from disaffiliation because of egregious costs,” he said. Many congregations have fled church over the more liberal direction the once-conservative institution has taken in recent years on LGBTQ issues.

United Methodist Church begins reorganization over LGBTQ+ issues

The experience is designed specifically for us, and feels intimate and personal. We love how we can connect with the church from our living room. Its great that Meck has so much for people who want to connect digitally. In 2002, at 16, she released a "best of" album called Prelude, and took part in the Royal Christmas tour alongside Dame Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, marking the end of her classical music career. Her next album, Tissues and Issues, would be a pop release. The conference last week also approved the departure of a small group of conservative churches in the former Soviet Union.

Reformed Churches in Charlotte NC

Meanwhile, separate proposals to remove restrictive language about LGBTQ+ clergy and same-sex weddings globally are on the agenda next week for this United Methodist General Conference. But the regionalization vote could make those proposals less contentious and perhaps less likely to pass. By reorganizing the United Methodist Church in this way, it's far more likely that its ban on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ clergy could be lifted in the U.S while allowing churches elsewhere to make their own rules. During the two-week conference, leaders will also determine policy abroad. Many UMC churches are in Africa and Asia, and some of them want to disaffiliate because they believe the religion in the U.S. is no longer conservative enough.

United Methodists begin to reverse longstanding anti-LGBTQ policies

Church also handled other vocal passages throughout the score. Church appeared on US Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) specials. Her 1999 self-titled second album also included operatic, religious, and traditional tracks. One, the soaring and inspirational Just Wave Hello, was the centrepiece of a millennium-themed ad campaign for the Ford Motor Company. The song's full-length video, featuring Church, won acclaim at the Detroit Auto Show and introduced her to new fans.

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“It’s a very liberating day for United Methodists who are actively involved with LGBTQ people,” said the Rev. David Meredith, board chair for the Reconciling Ministries Network, a group that has long advocated for LGBTQ inclusion in the church. And it imposed a moratorium on any church judicial processes seeking to discipline any clergy for violating LGBTQ-related rules. Iran's unprecedented air strikes on Israel, cyber attacks on UnitedHealth and Microsoft and the controversial execution of Texas inmate Ivan Cantu. Before joining Forbes, he was an award-winning local news reporter, the editor-in-chief of the Hamburg Sun in Buffalo and a reporter at Courthouse News Service. Farrell graduated from Boston College in 2015 with a B.A. In English, and from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in 2016 with an M.S.

More than 7,600 congregations, or about 25%, have broken off from the larger church in the past several years over disputes about LGBTQ rights and inclusivity, such as same-sex marriage and ordaining gay pastors. — Leaders of the United Methodist Church are holding their first international conference in nearly a decade this week, tackling such divisive issues as gay marriage, ordaining LGBTQ pastors and a dwindling membership. Progressives and many centrists supported regionalization, while traditionalists opposed the plan. Part of that divide is related to regionalization’s potential to allow the American church to move in a more LGBTQ-affirming direction, while allowing regional bodies outside the U.S. to maintain more traditional policy positions. With Wednesday’s decision to remove the ordination ban, “there’s an aspect of people finally seeing the goodness in the whole person,” said Cox.

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Some leaders in more progressive regions had begun defying the restrictions, and the church now has a number of openly gay clergy and two gay bishops. Since that contentious vote, however, the denomination’s makeup has changed, in large part because of conservative congregations departing in anticipation of the loosening of strictures around homosexuality that are becoming official this week. Though the end of the ban on gay clergy applies to the global church, regionalization means that in practice it may primarily affect churches in the United States.

These decisions will have other indirect effects, such securing a deeper relationship between the United Methodist and Episcopal churches. Those departures came during a window between 2019 and 2023 allowing U.S. congregations to leave with their properties, held in trust for the denomination, under friendlier than normal terms. Conservatives are advocating that such terms be extended for international and U.S. churches that don’t agree with the General Conference’s actions.

United Methodists lift 40-year ban on LGBTQ+ clergy, marking historic shift for the church

Following Wednesday’s vote on LGBTQ+ clergy, church members broke out into song, cheers and hugs, per videos shared on social media. Mr. Renfroe is attending the meeting in Charlotte but says that given the outcome, he will leave the denomination within the next month. He cautioned that many denominations that have moved in the direction that Methodists have taken this week have seen their numbers dramatically decline. “This is certainly the lightning rod issue, the presenting issue, but our division goes so much deeper,” said Rob Renfroe, the president of Good News, a traditionalist caucus within the United Methodist Church. He described sexuality as a proxy issue for larger debates in the church about the authority of the Bible, the reality of sin and beliefs about salvation. Wednesday’s vote follows years of turmoil in the denomination over sexuality, an issue that has prompted tumultuous debates and schisms in other Christian traditions and institutions.

The UMC General Conference also approved proposals called “regionalization,” which aims to restructure the denomination’s system of regional oversight. The plan gives regional United Methodist leadership outside the U.S. more autonomy. For example, while the U.S. church can move in a more LGBTQ-affirming direction, regional bodies outside the U.S. can adopt more traditionalist policies on issues such as marriage and sexuality. Last week, the conference approved the first phrase of a “regionalization” plan that would restructure the global denomination to give different regions autonomy on adapting rules on issues including sexuality. The move is seen as a way to defuse tensions between the increasingly progressive American church and more conservative factions internationally.

Delegates, meeting in Charlotte, N.C., also voted to bar local leaders from penalizing clergy or churches for holding, or declining to hold, same-sex weddings. The vote effectively allows same-sex marriage in the church for the first time, although the original penalty was already unevenly enforced. Some clergy may still decline to perform same-sex weddings. The United Methodist Church removed on Wednesday its longstanding ban on ordaining gay clergy, formalizing a shift in policy that had already begun in practice and that had prompted the departure of a quarter of its U.S. congregations in recent years. During the conference, leaders will vote on repealing the church's bans on same-sex marriage, ordaining LGBTQ clergy and will decide on whether to give further autonomy to congregations abroad that hold more conservatives views.

Grow closer to the Lord, and make friends and memories that could last a lifetime. As disciples of Jesus, we make it our aim to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did. Through teaching, practice, community, and the Holy Spirit, we’re helping one another learn what it means to experience and enjoy life in Jesus. At the end of 2005, Church bought a property in her native Cardiff—for a reported £500,000—which she later sold for £900,000. The couple then bought a manor with a 20-acre (8 hectare) small holding in the Vale of Glamorgan in the village of St Brides Major. Church has made a number of cameo appearances on television.

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Conservatives in the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, for example, have formed breakaway denominations in reaction to the acceptance of gay clergy. Catholic Church doctrine forbids same-sex relationships, but Pope Francis has alarmed some traditionalists by allowing priests to bless same-sex couples. In a meeting on Wednesday, church leaders also voted to allow L.G.B.T.Q. weddings. The deadline for "disaffiliating," as it was called, from the United Methodist Church was last December. More than 7,600 — about one quarter — of its congregations voted to leave.