First Methodist Church of Prattville and Orange Beach Methodist Church have voted to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church, but leaders of the denomination in South Alabama are organizing efforts to start new churches in Prattville, Orange Beach and in other places where churches are disaffiliating.

“We have all experienced a very difficult season of life,” said United Methodist Bishop David Graves, head of the Alabama-West Florida Conference. “However, this news gives me energy and the promise of a new day in this conference. Our focus moving forward will be starting new churches in places where there is no longer a United Methodist presence while also working with our existing churches to reach their current communities in new and innovative ways.”

The Alabama-West Florida Conference announced that it has launched a ministry strategy team to plant new faith communities and coach current churches to reach new people. The conference has not yet announced how many churches have voted to disaffiliate.

The departure of those that have voted to disaffiliate in South Alabama and the Florida panhandle will be approved by the conference on May 7.

Gulf Shores Methodist Church voted to disaffiliate on Nov. 17, with 259 yes votes (81 percent) and 56 no votes. On March 5, Gulf Shores Methodist voted to join the Global Methodist Church, as soon as the disaffiliation from the United Methodists becomes final on May 7. The Global Methodist Church, formed last year as an alternative conservative denomination for churches breaking away from the United Methodist Church, has recommended Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham for its future seminary students.

There was no information available about a new United Methodist church start in Gulf Shores, said Mary Catherine Phillips, director of communications for the Alabama-West Florida Conference.

Many of the breakaway churches have joined or plan to join the Global Methodist Church or join more conservative denominations where traditional Christian bans on same-sex marriage are not up for debate. Some plan to remain independent, while others plan to join the Free Methodist Church or the Foundry movement, a network of affiliated churches in the Methodist tradition.

Although the United Methodist Church still holds its traditional stance banning same-sex marriage and ordaining openly gay clergy, decades of fighting on the issue prompted many conservatives to leave when a door was opened clearing the way for them to take church property with them.

The Rev. Chris McCain is pastor of the new United Methodist church plant in Prattville, which had 57 people meet on Palm Sunday to establish the new congregation, the conference said. “It’s a blessing to be able to allow people to be faithful to their United Methodist roots and beliefs,” McCain said.

For now, that congregation is being called “Prattville New Church Start.”

It’s one of 11 announced so far to replace disaffiliating churches in South Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. The others are: Island New Church Start, Orange Beach; Troy New Church Start; Opelika New Church Start; ARK New Church Start; DeFuniak Springs New Church Start; Destin/Niceville New Church Start; Grand Ridge New Church Start; Open Door United Methodist Church, Pace, Fla.; Pike Road New Church Start; and Restoration United Methodist Church, Cottondale, Fla.

“Those are the 11 that are actively being worked on right now,” Phillips said.

The same process of splitting is happening in North Alabama. In December, 198 of the 638 United Methodist churches in the North Alabama Conference disaffiliated, or left the denomination. Since then, more than 100 additional churches in the North Alabama Conference have voted to disaffiliate and have requested approval of their disaffiliation by the conference at its next meeting on May 11.

The Alabama-West Florida Conference already had one round of disaffilations in June 2022 that included the departure of Frazer Methodist Church in Montgomery. The 7,000-member Frazer Church is the most prominent Alabama congregation to leave the United Methodist Church and was once known as Alabama’s largest congregation in the denomination. Frazer voted to join the Free Methodist Church, a more conservative denomination that has about 300,000 U.S. members and about a million worldwide.

See also: United Methodists start new congregations where churches disaffiliated

United Methodist split: 198 churches leave North Alabama Conference

After split, Methodists go in different directions

Frazer Memorial officially leaves the United Methodist Church