Pastor claims one-third of UMC churches in North Carolina regional body will leave denomination

An organizer with a theologically conservative alternative to the United Methodist Church has predicted that nearly a third of congregations in North Carolina might leave the mainline Protestant denomination.

The Rev. Jerry Lewis, the North Carolina organizer for the Global Methodist Church, told The Carolina Journal earlier this week that he believed at least 226 congregations will leave the UMC North Carolina Conference.

Lewis, who’s a church administrator for a Methodist congregation in Jacksonville, claimed that 180 churches have already voted to leave this year, while around 80 have indicated to the GMC that they might also leave the UMC next year. The 260 churches would make up around one-third of the regional body’s 779 member churches.

“We’re delighted at the sheer amount in what we called the ‘first wave,’” said Lewis. “To have 180 in this first phase is kind of mind-boggling in regard to everything they had to accomplish to reach this state in such a short amount of time.”

Of the 180 churches that have already voted to leave, according to Lewis, over 150 plan to join the GMC, while the remainder might either join GMC, another denomination or become nondenominational.

The Christian Post reached out to the Rev. Jerry Lewis for a comment, however, he was unable to return comment by press time.

The UMC annual conferences that cover the state are the North Carolina Conference and the Western North Carolina Conference…. (Excerpt from The Christian Post)