# Big week for the Methodists



## centerpin fan (May 10, 2016)

> The global United Methodist Church begins its once-every-four-years legislative meeting Tuesday, and the focus has been on whether to change or keep the denomination’s rejection of homosexuality....
> 
> ... The church has also seen huge controversy in recent years as pastors have begun openly bucking the ban on officiating at same-sex weddings, and high-profile disciplinary trials have embarrassed many Methodists.
> 
> In an effort to press the issue, 111 LGBT United Methodist clergy and clergy in training — about 80 percent who have not been out to their leadership — signed a letter released Monday to the conference, according to Reconciling Ministries, a group that advocates for full equality in the denomination ....



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...on-lgbt-issues-can-they-stay-together-anyway/


----------



## hummerpoo (May 10, 2016)

Articles like this one give me some hope,

https://juicyecumenism.com/2015/10/...bleeding-members-attendance-at-alarming-rate/

While the Episcopal Church has established a continued pattern of steady decline since the early 2000s, the unbroken trend is relatively recent: the church lost only 18,000 members in the 1990s, a plateau that dropped off about the time Gene Robinson of New Hampshire was consecrated the church’s first openly partnered gay bishop. Overall, the church has declined from a high of 3.6 million members in the mid-1960s to 1.8 million today, even as the U.S. population has more than doubled. The church has lost more than a quarter of its attendance since 2003.


----------



## apoint (May 10, 2016)

Next will be all gender bathrooms.


----------



## 4HAND (May 10, 2016)

Shameful.


----------



## Artfuldodger (May 10, 2016)

hummerpoo said:


> Articles like this one give me some hope,
> 
> https://juicyecumenism.com/2015/10/...bleeding-members-attendance-at-alarming-rate/
> 
> While the Episcopal Church has established a continued pattern of steady decline since the early 2000s, the unbroken trend is relatively recent: the church lost only 18,000 members in the 1990s, a plateau that dropped off about the time Gene Robinson of New Hampshire was consecrated the church’s first openly partnered gay bishop. Overall, the church has declined from a high of 3.6 million members in the mid-1960s to 1.8 million today, even as the U.S. population has more than doubled. The church has lost more than a quarter of its attendance since 2003.



It gives me hope that God is able to cull his elect from this weirdness and have mercy on whom he will have mercy regardless of their crazy works.


----------



## elfiii (May 11, 2016)

hummerpoo said:


> Articles like this one give me some hope,
> 
> https://juicyecumenism.com/2015/10/...bleeding-members-attendance-at-alarming-rate/



The church’s domestic U.S. membership dropped 2.7 percent from a reported 1,866,758 members in 2013 to 1,817,004 in 2014, a loss of 49,794 persons. Attendance took an even steeper hit, with the average number of Sunday worshipers dropping from 623,691 in 2013 to 600,411 in 2014, a decline of 23,280 persons in the pews, down 3.7 percent.

The biggest reason for that is the sanctioning of gay marriages by ECUSA. It was the final act of apostasy for most of us.


----------

