Another 18 churches disaffiliate from United Methodists in North Alabama

Another 18 churches disaffiliated from the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church on Tuesday night, wrapping up the final official departure vote for the region that has its headquarters office in Birmingham.

The latest group of churches that left include congregations in Hayden, Remlap, Pinson, Warrior, Chelsea and Wedowee, bringing the total of disaffiliations in the North Alabama Conference to 348, more than half of the churches in the conference.

The 18 that left Tuesday are in addition to 198 that disaffiliated on Dec. 10, 2022, and another 132 that disaffiliated on May 11. Before the Dec. 10 vote, there had been 638 congregations in the North Alabama Conference.

“The past year has been filled with grief,” said Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett, head of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church. “We in the North Alabama Conference have experienced loss through disaffiliation.”

Wallace-Padgett urged those who remain to put their energies into a new start, which includes 10 newly forming congregations.

“There’s a sense in which we are a new conference as of now,” Wallace-Padgett said.

Counting the new start-up congregations in some of the places where other churches have disaffiliated, the North Alabama Conference currently has 290 congregations.

The United Methodist split comes after decades of infighting over whether the denomination should maintain its stance on some issues related to human sexuality.

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.

Many of the churches leaving are joining the Global Methodist Church, a new denomination started last year by those who want to maintain a stance banning same-sex marriage and ordaining openly gay clergy. Some departing churches are remaining independent or joining other groups, such as the Free Methodist Church or the Foundry Movement.

The churches that disaffiliated on Sept. 12 were:

Central District

Hayden

The Church at Remlap

Sumiton

Taylor Memorial

Warrior First

Mountain Lakes District

Clear Creek

Haygood Memorial

Henryville

Ider