Today, the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church announced it is pausing all disaffiliation processes of its churches within the conference.

The conference has found that “many local churches have been misled about the disaffiliation process and have been presented with information about the process, and about The United Methodist Church and its leadership, that is factually incorrect and defamatory.”

They go on to say:

As a result of the misleading, defamatory, and false statements and materials shared with local church members by certain organizations as well as clergy and lay members of various churches and outside groups, we do not have confidence in the validity of upcoming church conference disaffiliation votes. After lengthy periods of discussion and consultation involving the cabinet, the board of trustees, and appropriate conference leadership, we have agreed that our Annual Conference cannot rely upon such votes for purposes of negotiating a gracious exit.

The ultimate step in the disaffiliation process is the ratification of disaffiliation agreements by the Annual Conference. However, because of the issues observed, the conference board of trustees is no longer confident it could recommend in good faith disaffiliation agreements to the Annual Conference at this time.

There have been many falsehoods and skewed perspectives spread about what the future of the United Methodist Church will look like after the 2024 General Conference. Earlier this fall, Bishops around the United Methodist Church began to vocally address the falsehoods being spread by organizations hoping to pull churches away from the UMC.

Some discernment processes have been entered into with a foregone conclusion desired at the end. Some have been influenced by organizations who have made claims that in the “future UMC”, the primacy of scripture won’t be recognized, that Jesus will be touted as only one of many ways to salvation, and that the UMC’s primary objective would be “social justice” and not saving souls.

It will be interesting to see what statements if any, the North Alabama Conference will issue.  And yes, these misinformation and biased discernment processes have happened – and are still happening – here in Alabama as well.  I will be addressing the top reasons being mentioned for disaffiliating in an upcoming post in the next few days.

Read the full statement from the North Georgia Conference here: North Georgia Conference to Pause Disaffiliation Process