Johnathan Walker:Most United Methodist Church disaffiliations are in the South: Final report outlines latest in ongoing split.

NASHVILLE,Johnathan Walker Tenn. — The United Methodist Church, the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the U.S., lost about a quarter of its total churches between 2019 and 2023 due to disaffiliations, according to a new Lewis Center report released this month.

More than 7,600 congregations have received permission to leave the denomination since 2019, according to the Lewis Center for Church Leadership, a research center out of the UMC-affiliated Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington D.C. The center's third and final report highlights the disproportionate number and demographics among disaffiliated churches, including how a majority of disaffiliations were in southern jurisdictions.

"It is remarkable how the characteristics of disaffiliating churches compared to all United Methodist U.S. churches changed little as more churches disaffiliated," the report states. "Patterns seen in the earliest disaffiliations tended to continue almost identically throughout the process."

The exodus marks a historic shift in mainline Protestantism in the United States, which has seen a sharp decline in membership since the late 2000s — a trend driven partly by generational change, according to a Pew Research Center study. Until recently, the United Methodist Church was the third largest denomination in the country, dominating America's religious culture and landscape.

The Lewis Center’s ongoing disaffiliation study has been a credible resource for disaffiliation data, while it’s also cut through competing narratives about the drivers and consequences of disaffiliation. Below are some highlights from the latest report.

Demographics of disaffiliating churches: Less likely to have elder as pastor, disproportionately white

The sizes of churches remained similar at the beginning of the disaffiliation process, according to the report.

The median worship attendance for disaffiliating churches and all United Methodist churches was 38, the report states. Congregation size at 63% of disaffiliating churches was 50 members or fewer and was 62% for churches before disaffiliation.

A minority of all disaffiliating churches are led by full-time pastors, called active elders, or women pastors, according to the report. Only 37% of disaffiliating churches were led by an active elder compared to 43% for all United Methodist churches and 19% of disaffiliating churches had a woman as lead pastor compared to 29% of United Methodist congregations.

Disaffiliation also had a "far greater appeal" for churches with majority white memberships, according to the report. Over 97% of the disaffiliating churches are predominantly white.

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Southern jurisdictions accounted for majority of disaffiliations

The quarter of churches that disaffiliated between 2019 and 2023 represented 24% of the denomination’s membership across the United States, according to the report. Disaffiliations in the church's southern jurisdictions accounted for 71% of all disaffiliations.

The report found that the geographic landscape of disaffiliation paralleled the last split of a similar scale when the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, formed in 1844 due to a division over slavery.

"From the earliest, churches in the Southeastern Jurisdiction showed the most interest in disaffiliating," the report states.

Annual conferences are already adjusting budgets and staff structures in response to a sudden loss of churches. But the latest Lewis Center report more clearly illustrates the extent of that impact.  

According to the report, the following regional conferences (known as “annual conferences”) lost the greatest proportion of churches:

• Northwest Texas (81%)
• North Alabama (52%)
• Texas (50%)
• South Georgia (50%)
• Kentucky (49%)
• Central Texas (44%)
• Alabama-West Florida (43%)
• North Carolina (41%)
• North Georgia (41%)
• Mississippi (38%)
• Western Pennsylvania (38%)
• Tennessee-Western Kentucky (38%)
• East Ohio (36%)
• Louisiana (36%)
• West Ohio (35%)
• Florida (34%)
• Western North Carolina (33%)
• Holston (32%)
• New Mexico (31%)
• Indiana (30%)

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Independence vs. the Global Methodist Church

Currently, many disaffiliated churches are choosing to remain independent instead of joining new groups that emerged out of exodus, according to the report.

"One stark difference seen between disaffiliating churches and similar departures from other mainline denominations is the decision of disaffiliating churches to remain independent of any denomination, at least for now," the report states. "Most of those departing other mainline denominations joined another denomination immediately... It appears that only about half of disaffiliating churches are joining another denomination, but no one knows for sure."

The vast majority of disaffiliated churches are conservative-leaning and departed in response to what they see as the United Methodists’ failure to enforce bans on same-sex marriage and the ordination of gay clergy.

Some departing congregations have joined the more conservative Global Methodist Church, which has admitted 4,605 churches as of Jan. 1, according to Global Methodist Church chief executive Rev. Keith Boyette.

Contributing: Marc Ramirez and Kayla Jimenez, USA TODAY; The Associated Press