{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "bskyPostRef": {
    "cid": "bafyreid7fer3h5lebxltzh7tvjmsu57wlaobo6fllqycrbcukrztmcv7we",
    "uri": "at://did:plc:xmviqbn3a2rrkhizx4gf7g6t/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhdbvmdybz42"
  },
  "coverImage": {
    "$type": "blob",
    "ref": {
      "$link": "bafkreibozkmcixaaqktgriw6d7rsonbrixchswwt24pwkpnuvicjnl7dci"
    },
    "mimeType": "image/jpeg",
    "size": 132235
  },
  "path": "/2026/03/17/why-am-i-still-united-methodist/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-17T21:34:50.000Z",
  "site": "https://juicyecumenism.com",
  "tags": [
    "Methodist",
    "Uncategorized",
    "Why Am I Still United Methodist?",
    "Juicy Ecumenism"
  ],
  "textContent": "The short answer: Because the denomination has become irrelevant.\n\nAnd, as a traditional Wesleyan living in Northern Virginia, as would be true in most large metropolitan areas, there are few alternatives.\n\nFor nearly 40 years, starting as a college student, I worked for evangelical renewal in United Methodism. During 2019-2023, we at IRD encouraged traditional churches to exit under the temporary denominational law allowing withdrawal from the denomination with church property. Nearly 8000 churches exited or were officially “closed,” half of them joining the new Global Methodist Church (GMC).\n\nGMC has no major presence in the DC area or in most cities, especially outside the south, otherwise I would have joined the GMC. Almost no churches exited United Methodism in the DC area. I still hope GMC will plant in Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia, and in other urban areas.\n\nOther Wesleyan denominations, like the Nazarenes, Free Methodists, Wesleyans, Church of God and others, do not have a very strong presence in my area. Also, I confess, I prefer traditional worship with old hymns, liturgy, an organ, with minister in clerical robes. I enjoyably attend a United Methodist congregation near my home that has all of these, plus a pastor who preaches a traditional Gospel.\n\nThere are probably problems in my local church, as there are everywhere, but I’m not looking for them. Reinhold Niebuhr rightly warned against idealizing the church, just as we shouldn’t idealize any other human institution.\n\nI am not a fan of the United Methodist Church’s current direction. But in truth, I have not been for my whole life. Yet still I came to and grew in faith in it. The denominational policies are less distressing to me now than 30 years ago because they have become almost inconsequential. And mercifully, I never hear them discussed in my congregation, because very few care about them. Of what importance are they? As my former pastor once admitted, nobody in the congregation under age 60 cares about United Methodism.\n\nContrary to what critics of Mainline Protestantism think, based on “Woke Prescher Clips” or other provocative media, local Mainline congregations rarely include political radicalism or drag queens, etc. They typically include mostly traditional people who worship with traditional hymns, liturgy, and sermons. They are more oblivious and indifferent to their denominational bureaucracies than ever before.\n\nMainline Protestantism is institutionally dying. Many of its denominations, including United Methodism, possibly, even likely, will not functionally exist ten years from now, except on paper or as endowments. As a young man I heard old people defiantly declare: “I will die a United Methodist!” I have not heard that from anybody in many years, about any denomination. Mainline denominations will die or fade into obscurity, but thousands of their congregations will endure, adapting to new realities apart from the old rigid denominational structures.\n\nDecades ago, denominations commanded multidenominational loyalties. People built their lives around them. They attended them, tithed to them, read their publications, attended their camps, joined their men’s or women’s societies, supported their missions’ agencies, and sent their children to their colleges. Those days are over. Now, church goers look for a congregation that suits them, regardless of denominational ties.\n\nThe priest of the Episcopal church near my United Methodist church told me his congregation, when he arrived after the pandemic, had faded away. So he helped recruit new people, including many families, the vast majority of whom do not care about the Episcopal church. Many of them are former Baptists. They just want a neighborhood church with other young families. The label on the sign is unimportant to them.\n\nOf course, many denominational churches now hide their label, seeing a denominational tie as a hindrance. This is neither good nor bad, just different.\n\nI am still a United Methodist and attend a United Methodist church every Sunday as a I have my whole life. But I do not care about the denomination. Even as a lifelong adherent and once longtime activist, I can no longer name the major officials of my ostensible denomination. I do not follow what its agencies do. The bishops recently made astatement about the Iran War. I did not read it. Why bother? Nobody else does.\n\nIf asked what I am religiously, I will say: “Methodist.” Many will assume that means “United Methodist” and assume it entails far left wokery. Few realize that “Methodist” applies to scores of denominations in the U.S. and around the world that include 80 million or so people. USA United Methodism has only 3.9 million at last count, down from 11 million 57 years ago, and fast declining. And many if not most of remaining USA United Methodists are traditional or centrist, focused on their local congregations, not the denomination.\n\nThousands of United Methodist churches will close in coming years. But thousands will survive. (There are about 20,000 in the U.S., down from over 30,000 just a few years ago.) I hope my congregation will endure. If it continues to preach the Gospel, it likely will.\n\nTen years ago, if you had told me that, after a denominational schism, I would still be a United Methodist, I would have been shocked. But in our post denominational age, when denominations mean very little, here I am, by default. I am grateful for my congregation and indifferent to the denomination. It does not merit anger, opposition or even irritation. Its sunset is now visible. Extinct dinosaurs should not be feared.\n\nAs President William McKinley once explained: “I am a Methodist and nothing but a Methodist—a Christian and nothing but a Christian.” United Methodism was born in 1968 and will expire in coming years. But Methodism, with its message of divine grace available to all people, will continue.\n\nThe post Why Am I Still United Methodist? appeared first on Juicy Ecumenism.",
  "title": "Why Am I Still United Methodist?"
}