United Methodist Church
Mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States
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January 2025 | Highland Park UMC publicly acknowledged Dr. John Fiedler's criminal charges after multiple news outlets published the information, following his quiet resignation from the church. |
2024 | Munger Place Church was spun off from HPUMC and returned to operating as an independent United Methodist Church. |
2024 | Planned international General Conference was cancelled due to inability to find a suitable two-week convention space, as confirmed by Sara Hotchkiss, business manager for the Commission on General Conference. |
October 2 2024 | Dr. John Fiedler, a pastor at Highland Park UMC, was charged with solicitation of prostitution during a police inspection of a massage parlor in Carrollton, Texas. |
May 28 2024 | The Côte d'Ivoire Conference, with 1.2 million members, voted to leave the UMC in response to the General Conference's decision to allow same-sex marriages and gay clergy. |
May 3 2024 | On the final day of the General Conference, the church removed language imposing penalties for same-sex wedding-related activities and added language allowing clergy to abstain from officiating weddings. |
May 2 2024 | The General Conference voted to remove language stating homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching and revised marriage language to be more inclusive. |
May 1 2024 | The General Conference voted to repeal prior prohibitions against clergy performing same-sex marriages and ordaining openly partnered LGBTQ clergy. |
April 30 2024 | United Methodist Church approved full communion with the Episcopal Church at their Annual Conference, with final approval from the Episcopal Church expected in 2027. |
April 30 2024 | The UMC removed penalties for clergy performing same-sex marriages, removed the ban on funding LGBTQ-affirming organizations, and removed the prohibition on considering openly LGBTQ candidates for ordained ministry. |
April 25 2024 | Delegates passed a proposal to restructure the UMC, establishing regionalization to allow each region to determine its own standards for same-sex marriage and LGBTQ clergy ordination. |
April 23 2024 | The 2024 General Conference began in Charlotte, North Carolina, running until May 3, with proposals approved to allow regional policy variations, remove language incompatible with homosexuality, and end bans on same-sex weddings and gay clergy. |
November 12 2023 | Uptown Church held its last service after nearly three years of ministry. |
2022 | The Western Jurisdiction elected Cedrick Bridgeforth as the denomination's second openly gay bishop and first Black gay Bishop. |
December 10 2022 | The congregation disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church and joined the Global Methodist Church, changing its name to Jasper First Methodist Church. |
May 10 2022 | The Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church ruled that annual conferences in the United States cannot leave the church for the Global Methodist Church; only individual churches may do so. |
May 1 2022 | Official launch of the Global Methodist Church, with many traditionalist United Methodist churches joining the new denomination. |
March 2021 | Conservative leaders unveiled the name Global Methodist Church for a new traditionalist denomination, including a new website and logo. |
January 2021 | HPUMC launched Uptown Church, meeting at the House of Blues, which was one of the first churches in the United Methodist denomination led by two ordained clergywomen. |
2020 | The United Methodist Church had 6,268,310 members and 30,543 churches in the United States. |
November 2020 | A progressive wing of the church announced their intention to create a new denomination called the Liberation Methodist Connexion, launched on the First Sunday in Advent through an online service. |
January 3 2020 | Methodist leaders proposed a plan to split the United Methodist Church over issues of sexual orientation and same-sex marriage. |
2019 | General Conference convened in St. Louis, Missouri, continuing the church's regular four-year organizational gathering. |
February 26 2019 | A special session of the General Conference rejected a proposal for individual pastors and regional church bodies to decide on LGBT clergy and same-sex weddings, instead voting to strengthen opposition to such practices. |
2018 | The United Methodist Church had 6,464,127 members and 12,866 churches outside of the United States. |
September 17 2018 | Bishop Scott Jones of the Texas Annual Conference and Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia signed a 'Joint Declaration on the End of Life and Palliative Care', jointly reaffirming both the United Methodist Church and Roman Catholic Church's opposition to euthanasia. |
2017 | HPUMC launched a new campus called The Grove Church in North Dallas, located on the site of the former Schreiber Memorial United Methodist Church. |
April 28 2017 | The Judicial Council ruled that consecrating a bishop in a same-sex marriage or partnership violates church law, and that public marriage records could be considered evidence of self-avowed homosexuality. |
2016 | General Conference held in Portland, Oregon, as part of the church's quadrennial meeting where legislative changes are discussed and recorded in The Book of Discipline. |
2016 | The Western Jurisdiction elected the denomination's first openly and partnered lesbian bishop. |
April 2016 | Val Rosenquist avoided a church trial after co-officiating a same-gender wedding with retired Bishop Melvin Talbert. |
2015 | United Methodist Church established plans to hold its first conference outside of the United States in 2024. |
2014 | Frank Schaefer was re-instated after the denomination's top court upheld a decision to reinstate his ministerial credentials following his defrocking for officiating his son's same-sex wedding. |
2013 | Rev. Paul Rasmussen began serving as the Senior Minister. |
May 2012 | United Methodist Church entered into full communion with five African-American Methodist churches, agreeing to recognize each other's churches, share sacraments, and affirm clergy and ministries. |
2010 | Munger Place United Methodist Church became a satellite campus of Highland Park United Methodist Church after restoration. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Highland Park United Methodist Church, First United Methodist Church (Jasper, Alabama) & United Methodist Church, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.