Article here: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/liberal-methodists-toss-out-the-africans/ Arrogant (and mostly Caucasian) western liberals treating foreign "people of color" like ignorant children while at the same time claiming to speak for them? Say it ain't so! I was a little surprised to find that the Methodists had not completed their divorce yet; I was under the impression that the split had been finalized earlier this year. That's pretty much a clean sweep of the mainline Protestant denominations at this point. Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, and now the Methodists. The Great Orthodox/Liberal Schism. We are living through a historic age, maybe a change greater than the Protestant Reformation. Whether this will end up being a turn back towards orthodoxy and tradition, or a massive lurch towards the left and "progressivism", is hard to say right now.
The UMC is something I have started watching more closely. Having moved to Southeast Ohio, there is at least one UMC in any significant village. How many will be GMC in a year or two? Will the GMC take a couple of steps away from American evangelicalism and the seeker sensitive church growth mentality? The local district has irritated many of the old-timers by going almost exclusively to happy-clappy contemporary service formats.
It's no different anywhere else. The "seeker friendly" stuff really got under way in the 1990's, I think as part of a pushback against the "fundamentalists" who (in the view of the younger folk) were unnecessarily keeping the curious out of the faith by being too harsh in theology and too staid in church practice. So lots of churches adopted an "entertain first, teach later" model to get people in the door: more music, more emotion, more video on big monitors, lots of emotionalism and witness and stories of personal growth and change. But not much expository preaching or even Bible reading. You get a brief prayer and the beginning and the end, but that's it. And, no matter what, they keep the service under an hour so people don't get bored or restless. Now, there's nothing wrong with any of that, a priori. It's not my preference in terms of church practice, but I'm an old guy and I prefer a...well, let's say more sedate mode of worship. I like the Anglican Liturgy. I like taking Communion in the old way. I like pews, lecterns, church organs, choir lofts, vestments, stained-glass windows, leather bibles with gilted pages, all the rest. I am an unapologetic traditionalist. But I do not think that church practice (necessarily) dictates whether a church is Godly or not. If they preach and teach the Gospel through good doctrine, the rest is rather less important. (Not unimportant, but less important.) The problem comes in when these "seeker friendly" churches fall down on the Gospel front, though, and many of them do. American Protestantism has always been notorious for being light on theology, but these new churches take that to an extreme. The sermons are rarely expository, in my experience -- they tend to be more exhortative or motivational (you particularly see this in the "prosperity Gospel" churches). You could give the same speech at a Rotary meeting or a sales seminar and it wouldn't raise an eyebrow. But the worst thing about many of these churches is that these days it's all "me, me, me". Self-affirmation, self-development, self-love -- discipleship has morphed into a purely inward-turning exercise. I don't see much in the way of servantship, outreach, or mission work from these churches. They are willing to give money, but not effort or time. I think this is why a lot of tradition-minded young people (and even older guys like me) are going back to the liturgical and sacramental forms of worship. This sort of thing isn't just abstract church practice; it fosters a sense of internal unity and participation in church life. When we recite the Lord's Prayer in unison, or respond "..and with your spirit" to the Priest's "The Lord be with you", we speak as one people and one church. When we accept the wafer during Communion, we do it together.
I am following it as the UMC was my old church. I know for sure that my old local church is going to go to the GMC. I don't know about the other one in town. It probably will also go GMC. Both of the pastors are conservative.