Rev. Rebecca Trefz, left, and Jim Ducker, right, present the call to worship during the Special Session held virtually on August 15. Photos are screen shots from recording.

“Faith brings surprises. Faith offers us connection with people near and far. Faith tells us of God’s power and grace; both ever in motion, constantly beckoning us, and moving us forward. Faith finds truth in the immortal words of John Wesley: ‘best of all, God is with us!’”

These were the words of the call to worship during the 2023 Called Special Session of the Dakotas Annual Conference on August 15, 2023.

The purpose of the session was to consider the ratification of 15 disaffiliation agreements. The Book of Discipline’s ¶ 2553 allows churches to leave The United Methodist Church with property if they meet certain financial and procedural requirements, including at least a two-thirds vote by the congregation and approval of the disaffiliation agreement by the congregation’s annual conference. All fifteen of the disaffiliation agreements were ratified during the session held virtually. View the legislation.

After decades of increasingly rancorous debate about LGBTQ inclusion at the denominational level, the 2019 special General Conference added a church law that allows U.S. congregations to leave the denomination with property if they meet certain financial and procedural conditions.

As a result, what largely had been a debate among denominational leaders has seeped into local congregations as well as false accusations that The United Methodist Church is abandoning core Christian doctrines. 

Church exits have accelerated since last year’s launch of the Global Methodist Church, a conservative, breakaway denomination that aims to maintain bans on same-sex marriage and noncelibate gay clergy. 

To date, United Methodist News Service reports there have been 6,240 United Methodist congregations in the United States that have disaffiliated. The number represents about 20% of the UMC churches in the United States.

In the Dakotas, 58 churches have chosen disaffiliation representing a 25%  of the number of churches reported in 2021, and 8,600 members or 25% reported in 2021. All data is self-reported annually be each congregation. View a list of the disaffiliated churches in the Dakotas Conference. 
 

Bishop Lanette Plambeck, resident bishop, Dakotas-Minnesota Area of The United Methodist Church presided during the Special Session.

This ends the disaffiliation process for the Dakotas Conference under ¶ 2553. The legislation authorizing disaffiliation for local churches wishing to leave the denomination expires at the conclusion of 2023.

Presiding at the session, Bishop Lanette Plambeck, offered this prayer. “I pray for all who have chosen to separate from the Dakotas Conference and all ministries related to the United Methodist Church that as you step out in faith on new paths, that God would bless you and your ministry and that you would indeed reach those that we who remain in the United Methodist Church would not be able to reach. Amen.”

She also thanked and offered words of hope to those who choose to remain United Methodist. “For the 80% of United Methodists across the world who have determined that God has called us to remain in the United Methodist Church, thank you. Thank you for the ways in which you love God and love each other. Thank you for the ways in which you bear witness in the world through ministries of compassion, mercy, justice, and service. It is good for us to proclaim who we are called to be the church, the body of Christ in the world.”

Bishop Lanette closed the session reminding everyone of the theological task for The United Methodist Church, ¶ 105, of The Book of Discipline, that ends with Ephesians 3:20-21: “Now to God who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.”

View a recording of the session.