Following a week on a mission trip in rural Kentucky, Pastor Skyler Jones is ready to step up into the pulpit of a new United Methodist congregation in Oneonta.

He’ll know the congregation, and they’ll know him. “Most of these people have watched me grow up,” he said.

Jones grew up attending Lester Memorial United Methodist Church in Oneonta, but more than two-thirds of about 300 voting members of that congregation voted to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church last year. They negotiated to keep the church campus and plan to be part of the new Global Methodist Church.

“It’s been challenging to navigate that,” Jones said. “I grew up there.”

Since the disaffiliation vote on Dec. 10, the former members of Lester Memorial who wanted to stay in the United Methodist denomination are starting anew.

Jones, who was the youth minister at Lester Memorial for seven years, decided to stay with the denomination and help with the new church start.

Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett, head of the North Alabama Conference, has officially assigned Jones as a familiar face to lead the new congregation as a licensed local pastor.

“I was not ready to give up youth ministry,” Jones said.

“We’re creating this role as it goes,” he said. “None of us have ever been in this position before.”

Serving as pastor of a newly launched congregation will allow him to keep a focus on youth ministry as he willingly shares the pulpit with others who want to tell their faith stories, he said.

June 28 was moving day for many clergy in the United Methodist Church. Those who are changing locations packed up from previous assignments and moved to their new appointments for this Sunday, July 2.

The North Alabama Conference finalized and released its list of clergy assignments on June 24 for about 305 United Methodist churches that remain in the North Alabama Conference after a dramatic split in which 330 congregations disaffiliated since last year.

Jones, 32, has a degree in religious studies from Athens State University and a master’s degree in youth ministry from Memphis Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Casey, have a son, Obadiah, 5.

Jones will lead the service at the new church on Sunday, July 2, meeting at the Calvary Episcopal Church, 1002 Park Ave. in Oneonta. Calvary has dwindled to less than a dozen remaining members and no longer has a morning service, but still meets Sundays at 5 p.m. The Oneonta United Methodists are renting space there as part of their new church startup.

Jones said this Sunday will focus on a recap of the work done with the 21-person mission team from Oneonta, repairing homes damaged by severe floods last summer in Kentucky. “By those means, be the hands and feet of Jesus,” he said.

Many other clergy are moving to new churches this week and pastors will be in their new pulpits on Sunday if they have moved. Some will be part of new church start-ups in communities where churches have disaffiliated.

“I don’t think any of us knew what was going to happen next,” Jones said of the church split. “This is not where I imagined myself in December when I left Lester Memorial. It was in some ways painful. We’ve experienced a lot of grief. It’s been a difficult six months.”

But new beginnings are happening.

“We want people to know we’re here,” Jones said. “When we say everyone’s welcome, we mean everyone.”

The Oneonta group began organizing Dec. 18, the week after the disaffiliation vote. They held a worship service on Christmas Eve and their first Sunday service on New Year’s Day, said member Bob Bentley.

They started meeting at the former Miller’s Drug store, then moved to The Makers art studio. The group started with 50 to 55 people and grew to about 60 to 80 before moving to the Episcopal Church.

Other pastors assigned to North Alabama Conference new church starts effective July 1 include the Rev. Chuck Worley, senior pastor of Fellowship in Madison; the Rev. Carol Gullatt, senior pastor of Abundant Grace in Albertville; and the Rev. Nick George, senior pastor of Mosaic in Winfield.

For the full list of United Methodist clergy appointments in the North Alabama Conference, click here.

For the full list of United Methodist clergy appointments in the Alabama-West Florida Conference, click here.

Before setting appointments on Saturday, June 24, United Methodists meeting in the North Alabama Conference on Friday voted to call for the upcoming international meeting of the denomination to drop all mention of homosexuality from the Book of Discipline, the book of church law.

The Book of Discipline currently says “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christianity,” and bans the blessing of same-sex marriage in the church and the ordination of openly gay clergy.

Progressives have for years been fighting to change those bans. Conservatives who disaffiliated with the United Methodists and started the Global Methodist Church last year say they want to maintain the church’s traditional stance against same-sex marriage, despite the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states.

See also: United Methodists urge repeal of ban on same-sex marriage, openly gay clergy

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