Is the United Methodist Church seeking to change our doctrines, theology, or worship practices?

No. In 1968, when the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren merged to the form The United Methodist Church. In this new expression of The United Methodist Church both the Articles of Religion from the Methodist Church and the Confession of Faith of the Evangelical United Brethren Church were put forth as our Doctrinal Standards and the Judicial Council has ruled these standards cannot be changed.

Can the Annual Conference as a whole leave The United Methodist Church?

In May, the Judicial Council ruling 1444 declared that an Annual Conference cannot disaffiliate as an entire body at this time because General Conference has not yet passed legislation for the basis or process to do so.

If the Annual Conference could leave together what would be the cost of leaving?

If granted the ability to leave at this time, the South Georgia Annual Conference would be responsible for $38,000,000 (as of March 2022) to cover its portion of the pension withdrawal liability. With this in mind the South Georgia Annual Conference does not have that amount of unrestricted funds available.

Can the South Georgia Annual Conference take its current pension withdraw liability with it into a new denominational structure and avoid such high cost of exiting?

If the Judicial Council were to rule that an annual conference is permitted to separate from the UMC, Wespath’s interpretation of the plan language is that such a separating annual conference similarly could not be a plan sponsor of CRSP. Only UMC annual conferences (and the General Council on Finance and Administration) may sponsor CRSP. This means that annual conferences (and the local churches within them) that separate from the UMC and make the required pension withdrawal payment will no longer be responsible for pension obligations under CRSP, while annual conferences (and the local churches within them) that remain in the UMC will remain liable for funding the pension obligations under CRSP.

In short, at this current point in time Wespath does not have a way for the CRSP plan to transfer with a local church or Annual Conference leaving the UMC.

What about local church disaffiliations in South Georgia after 2023?

Conference Chancellor Cater Thompson and Conference Trustee Dr. Jimmy Asbell, Jr. share a video about how the process will go after 2023.