Michigan United Methodists see more churches depart over LGBTQ+ issues

DETROIT — Nearly five dozen Michigan churches plan to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church amid a rift over LGBTQ+ issues that has fractured one of the country’s largest Protestant denominations.

Mark Doyal, spokesperson for the Michigan conference of the United Methodist Church, confirmed that as of Monday — the deadline for churches looking to disaffiliate by June’s annual conference — 58 of the state’s 721 United Methodist Churches would be disaffiliating, or about 8%.

The issue at hand for most disaffiliating churches is the idea that the United Methodist Church is weakening its own doctrines. The church officially recognizes marriage as between a man and a woman, but the church has eased its interpretations of its own Book of Discipline — effectively the law of the church — to allow for same-sex marriages. It also has started to allow for LGBTQ+ clergy.

Based on the number of churches that have requested information from the conference, Doyal said he didn’t expect to see too many more churches disaffiliating in the future.

“I believe this is going to be the majority of churches we are seeing,” he said. “Of course, we won’t know until we know. We’re certain there will be a few more. But compared to other annual conferences we’ve seen across the country, I believe we have a significantly lower number departing.”

Michigan has a relatively low number of disaffiliating churches compared with some other conferences around the country. In Tennessee’s Holston conference, for example, 21% of its membership is leaving; in North Carolina’s eastern conference, the number is closer to a third.

Many congregations in Michigan are heading in a more progressive direction, Bishop David Bard of the Michigan Conference of the United Methodist Church previously told The Detroit News. But other congregations see it as a step too far.

The Michigan conference has already said it plans to allow clergy to officiate same-sex weddings when the Book of Discipline changes. Not all other conferences have said they would do this. But those who follow what they called a “more traditional” interpretation of the UMC’s texts said this approach is moving away from the true word of the Bible as well as the Book of Discipline.

Many of the departing churches are on the smaller side and tend to hold more conservative views, leaders say. But the largest congregation leaving in Michigan is Cornerstone United Methodist Church in the Grand Rapids area, one of the fastest growing churches that has about 1,300 attendees between its three locations weekly.

The main church is in Caledonia with satellite campuses in downtown Grand Rapids and the suburb of Wyoming. It also averaged 877 weekly virtual worshippers in 2022, according to the Michigan conference.

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