The United Methodist Church (UMC) decided last February to tighten LGBT restrictions and apparently the members of Grace Fellowship in Texas felt that wasn’t enough, leading the followers to make the decision to leave the UMC and join a more conservative branch of Methodism, according to Pink News.
The UMC, using what they call the “traditional plan”, decided that homosexuality is just as bad as sexual abuse, child abuse, and racism and that same-sex marriage cannot be performed in a Methodist church. Despite those untrue and hurtful proclamations, Grace Fellowship said that they were tired of United Methodist deciding on LGBT issues, and, in fact, said that the UMC isn’t adhering to biblical teachings strongly enough. Translation: The UMC isn’t anti-gay enough.
Jim Leggett, the founder of Grace Fellowship and Senior Pastor, said that he decided to withdraw from the UMC because he wanted to avoid the “dysfunctional fighting going on in the United Methodist Church so that we can fully devote our energies to fulfilling the mission and vision that God has given to us.” He also said that despite having the biblical teaching clearly written out, UMC wasn’t fully living up to it. I don’t really know what more they need – UMC already compared homosexuality to the most heinous of crimes and prevented their gay congregates from getting married in their churches and prevented LGBT people from being officiated, so I struggle to understand what more Grace Fellowship wants.
Full disclaimer: I have never been and never will be a churchgoer, but if I were a member of the Methodist church and I heard about this, I would most likely find another, more inclusive denomination. But with the way that things are going on within the church in the United States, it’s not looking goof for LGBT anywhere. But maybe I’m just being a pessimist. I want to hear your thoughts: what do you think about this decision by Grace Fellowship? And do you think that this particular church is a fringe group or will others follow suit?
Source: Pink News
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I used to attend various churches from Evangelical because the music was good, the Methodist where me and my husband were openly welcome to serve and the Presbyterian where we were welcomed but they weren’t inclusive with classes and groups they had.