Denominations

The United Methodist Church

On the sources. Built from the 2024 Book of Discipline read directly, paragraph by paragraph. One caution about the surrounding literature: commentary on the 2019–2023 departures is heavily partisan on all sides, and none of it carries a factual claim here — the departure figures come from the denomination's own finance agency and the terms from the paragraph itself. Three corrections were made once the published edition was in hand, and both are recorded rather than quietly amended. This profile previously cited ¶334.1–3 for continuation under appointment; the provision is ¶337.1, which refers to ¶334.2–.3 only for the eligibility requirements. And it previously described ¶812 as calling apportionments in general the first benevolent responsibility of the Church; the paragraph concerns the World Service Fund, and the phrase attaches to World Service apportionments specifically. Both errors came from citing text verified through quotation rather than read in the edition, which is why such citations are now flagged as a matter of course.

Identity

Founded

Formed in 1968 by the union of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Its property trust requirement is older than the denomination itself: the Book of Discipline describes the trust as an essential element of historic Methodist polity, present in the Discipline since 1797.

Headquarters

The denomination has no single headquarters. General agencies are distributed across several cities; the General Council on Finance and Administration, which administers the group tax ruling and the denomination's trademarks, is based in Nashville, Tennessee.

What it calls itself

Calls itself a church and a connection. "Connectional" is the operative term in its own documents: congregations are not understood as independent units in voluntary association but as parts of a single body, which is the premise the property trust rests on.

Congregations

22,096 United States congregations at the end of 2023, per the denomination's finance agency. The figure follows a large contraction: more than 7,600 US congregations — roughly 26% — departed under the temporary disaffiliation provision that expired at the end of 2023, and about 200 more left during 2024 under annual conference policies. The denomination is larger than its US figures, with substantial membership in Africa, the Philippines, and Europe.

Adherents or attendance

About 5.7 million US members as of the end of 2022 — a figure that predates most of the departures above and should not be read against the 2023 congregation count. Membership reporting lags congregational reporting because annual conferences file first and the agency compiles after.

Property

Who holds title

The congregation, held in trust for the denomination

Title is held by the local congregation's trustees, but held in trust for the whole denomination. The Discipline states that all properties of United Methodist local churches and other United Methodist agencies and institutions are held in trust for the benefit of the entire denomination, and that the trust is and always has been irrevocable except as the Discipline itself provides. A congregation may acquire, hold, maintain, improve, and sell property, but only for purposes consistent with the mission of the Church as the Discipline sets it out. Property can be released from the trust only to the extent the Discipline grants authority.

The instrument

The trust reaches the deed itself. ¶2503 requires that every written instrument of conveyance for premises held for worship or other member activities contain a prescribed trust clause, and the clause is worth reading in full because its drafting is unusually careful: "In trust, that said premises shall be used, kept, and maintained as a place of divine worship of the United Methodist ministry and members of The United Methodist Church; subject to the Discipline, usage, and ministerial appointments of said Church as from time to time authorized and declared by the General Conference and by the annual conference within whose bounds the said premises are situated. This provision is solely for the benefit of the grantee, and the grantor reserves no right or interest in said premises." Two features do the work. The property is made subject to the Discipline "as from time to time authorized" — so the terms of the trust follow whatever the General Conference later decides, rather than being fixed at the date of the deed. And the final sentence forecloses the obvious escape: the grantor keeps nothing, so no one outside the Church retains an interest to assert. Even so, because the trust is asserted by the denomination's own governing document, its force in a given case has turned on how a particular state's courts treat denominational trust provisions.

When a congregation closes

When a local church closes, its property passes to the annual conference board of trustees, which holds or disposes of it. The Discipline directs that board to remove United Methodist insignia and symbols from the property so far as is practicable, authorises it to act as the closed church's legal representative in insurance claims, and asks it to consider selling or leasing to another denomination of the Pan-Methodist Commission. Between conference sessions a church may transfer its property to the conference trustees voluntarily, with the conference deciding formally to close it when it next meets; and where the bishop, a majority of district superintendents, and the district board of church location and building all agree that exigent circumstances exist, they may act immediately to protect the property.

When a congregation departs

There is currently no general provision by which a congregation departs and keeps its building. Between 2019 and the end of 2023 a temporary paragraph allowed it on stated terms; that paragraph expired on 31 December 2023 and the 2024 General Conference removed it. A congregation leaving now does so without a disciplinary path for the property, which under ¶2501 remains subject to the trust.

Money

Where the money goes The United Methodist Church: Apportionments, assessed by formula; some support flows back. The congregation Apportionments Assessed by formula Set by each annual conference; no single… support returns
Generated from this profile's own data rather than drawn by hand, so it cannot drift from the text. Rates are abbreviated here; the full terms and their qualifications are below.

Apportionments

Assessed by formula — Set by each annual conference; no single denomination-wide rate

Each congregation is apportioned a share of the connection's costs. The finance agency recommends the formula by which general church funds are apportioned to annual conferences, and each annual conference then sets its own formula for apportioning to individual churches — some on membership, some on a measure of the congregation's finances — with the result published in that conference's journal. The amount is therefore assessed by formula rather than pledged, and a congregation does not set its own figure.

What happens if it is not paid

The Discipline's strongest language on the point is narrower than it is often quoted as being, and the distinction is worth preserving. ¶812 concerns the World Service Fund specifically: "World Service on apportionment represents the minimum needs of the general agencies of the Church. Payment in full of these apportionments by local churches and annual conferences is the first benevolent responsibility of the Church." The phrase attaches to World Service, not to apportionments at large. The language throughout is of obligation rather than of debt collection. Apportionments are not enforced as a civil liability against a congregation, and shortfalls are absorbed upward. What non-payment affects is a congregation's standing in the conference — and it was briefly consequential in a harder sense during the disaffiliation window, when departure was conditioned on apportionments being brought current.

Money that flows down

Money moves down as well as up, chiefly through equitable compensation: a congregation that cannot meet the conference minimum for a full-time pastor may receive supplemental funds administered by the conference commission on equitable compensation. This is the mechanism that lets the connection place a full-time pastor in a charge that could not afford one on its own receipts.

Who sets the pastor's pay

Negotiated between congregation and pastor

Compensation is set locally through the charge conference on the recommendation of the committee on pastor-parish relations, but inside a floor the annual conference sets. The conference commission on equitable compensation recommends conference-wide standards for pastoral support, which the annual conference adopts; a congregation may pay above the minimum but not below it for a full-time appointment. The pastor is not a free party to the negotiation in the usual sense, since the pastor did not apply for the post and cannot leave it unilaterally.

Who pays the pastor

The local congregation

The congregation pays the pastor's salary from its own receipts, supplemented by the conference where equitable compensation applies. This is the arrangement that makes the UMC's structure hard to read from the outside: the congregation writes the cheque, but did not choose the recipient and cannot end the arrangement.

Minimum standards

Each annual conference adopts a minimum compensation schedule for full-time clergy on the recommendation of its commission on equitable compensation, which also administers the funds that supplement congregations unable to meet it and advises district superintendents and pastor-parish relations committees on pastoral support. The figures are conference-specific and published annually.

Pension and benefits

Clergy retirement is administered denomination-wide by Wespath, the church's benefits agency, and funded by required congregational contributions rather than by individual arrangement. Under the Clergy Retirement Security Program the local church contributed a set percentage of the pastor's compensation, with a further matched component where the pastor contributed personally. That plan was frozen at the end of 2025 and succeeded by a new plan, Compass, from 1 January 2026; benefits already earned under the old plan are retained. The denomination's aggregate pension obligation was consequential during the disaffiliation window, when departing congregations were required to settle a share of it.

Clergy

Who credentials clergy

A regional body

Clergy are credentialed by the annual conference, not by the congregation they serve and not by the general church. Membership in the annual conference — rather than membership in a local church — is what an ordained elder holds, and it is the conference that examines, ordains, and receives into full connection.

How a pastor is placed

Appointed

The bishop appoints. The Discipline empowers the bishop to make and fix all appointments in the episcopal area, and the appointment system is itinerant: open itineracy means appointments are made without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, colour, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or age. Consultation with the pastor and the committee on pastor-parish relations is required in every annual conference and is explicitly more than notification, but it is consultation and not consent — neither congregation nor pastor holds a veto. Appointments are made with the expectation that a pastorate's length answers the long-term needs of charge, community, and pastor, and bishops are directed to work toward longer tenures.

Employer of record

Split — the congregation pays, but does not hire

The congregation does not hire its pastor, and that — rather than who signs the cheque — is the fact that distinguishes this arrangement. The bishop makes the appointment and the annual conference holds the credentials; the congregation receives the pastor it is sent, and cannot dismiss one. Payroll runs the other way, which is what makes the arrangement easy to misread. For tax purposes the local church is the employer: a United Methodist pastor is a common-law employee of the congregation and receives a W-2 from it, subject to the dual status under which clergy are treated as self-employed for Social Security and the church is barred from withholding or paying FICA. So the congregation carries every burden of employment — salary, benefits, reporting, liability — while holding none of the powers that ordinarily come with it.

Removal

A congregation cannot dismiss its pastor. The appointment is the bishop's to make and to change, and the ordinary route by which an unworkable pastorate ends is reappointment at the bishop's initiative, following consultation in which the pastor-parish relations committee is heard. Removal from ministry itself — as distinct from removal from a post — runs through the annual conference, which holds the credentials.

Security of tenure

The provision commonly called guaranteed appointment: "All elders in full connection who are in good standing in an annual conference shall be continued under appointment by the bishop unless they are granted a sabbatical leave, a medical leave, family leave, a leave of absence, retirement, or have failed to meet the requirements for continued eligibility." So it is a real guarantee with real exits, and the eligibility requirements it points to do substantial work. Its counterpart obligation is itineracy — the elder's commitment to go where sent — and the two are best read as one bargain rather than as a benefit standing alone. An attempt by the 2012 General Conference to end the guarantee was ruled unconstitutional by the denomination's own court, which is a useful measure of how structural it is.

Governance

The legislative body

The General Conference, meeting once a quadrennium, holds full legislative power over all matters distinctively connectional, and is the only body that can speak officially for the denomination — a point the Discipline makes in the negative: no person, no paper, and no organisation has that authority, it being reserved exclusively to the General Conference under the Constitution. Delegates, between roughly 600 and 1,000 of them, are elected by the annual conferences, half clergy and half lay. No bishop, agency, or annual conference can alter the Discipline.

Who oversees the congregation

A bishop, holding office for life

Bishops, and their tenure is fixed in the Constitution itself: "bishops elected by the jurisdictions of The United Methodist Church shall have life tenure." A bishop is elected by a jurisdictional conference rather than by the general church or by the annual conference they will serve, and holds the office until retirement — there is no re-election, and no periodic decision by anyone about whether they continue. Accountability runs through review rather than through re-election. Each jurisdictional conference elects a standing committee on episcopacy, one clergy and one lay delegate from each annual conference, which reviews the bishops' work. The office is described as a special ministry rather than a separate order of ministry.

  • governing document Book of Discipline 2024 ¶51 (Constitution), life tenure of bishops and the committee on episcopacy
  • governing document Book of Discipline 2024 ¶¶401-403, the task of superintending; office not a separate order

Calling a bishop to account

A bishop's continuation in office "shall be subject to review" whenever the bishop "violates this trust or is unable to fulfill appropriate responsibilities," and the Discipline states the purpose of that review as just resolution rather than punishment. Any complaint concerning effectiveness, competence, or the chargeable offenses goes to the president of the College of Bishops of the jurisdictional or central conference — or to the secretary if the complaint concerns the president. A complaint is defined as a written statement claiming misconduct, unsatisfactory performance of ministerial duties, or a listed offence. What happens next is unusually prescriptive about who handles it. Within ten days the president and secretary consult the chair of the conference committee on episcopacy, who appoints from that committee one lay and one clergy member — required to be from different episcopal areas, from neither the area the bishop was elected from nor the one assigned to, and not of the same gender as each other. The composition rules are doing conflict-of-interest work that most bodies leave to discretion. The chargeable offences at ¶2702.1 are twelve: immorality; crime; disobedience to the order and discipline of the Church; dissemination of doctrines contrary to its established standards; relationships or behaviour that undermine the ministry of another pastor; child abuse; sexual abuse; sexual misconduct, including the use or possession of pornography; harassment, including but not limited to racial and sexual harassment; racial or gender discrimination; fiscal malfeasance; and domestic violence. A statute of limitations applies, and offences alleged to have occurred before 1 January 1993 are time barred. A moratorium at ¶2701.6 suspends part of this, and its scope should be stated precisely rather than in general terms, because it is narrow and specific. It halts new and pending judicial proceedings concerning the Discipline's human sexuality provisions — charges that a respondent is a "self-avowed practicing homosexual," has conducted or celebrated a same-gender wedding or union, has ordained or consecrated such a person, has provided funds to a gay caucus, or has otherwise engaged in conduct the 2016 Discipline described as incompatible with Christian teaching. It expressly extends to any attempt to bring the same alleged conduct under another head, naming immorality, disobedience to the order and discipline, dissemination of contrary doctrine, and fiscal malfeasance. It took effect at the close of the postponed 2020 General Conference and remains until repealed or modified. Nothing else in the list is affected. The moratorium does not touch the offences at ¶2702.1(f) to (l). A trial is convened by the president of the College under ¶2712, from a pool of thirty-five or more clergy in full connection named by the College in approximately equal numbers from each episcopal area, with counsel for the Church a bishop or other clergy in full connection. Appeal lies to the Judicial Council.

  • governing document Book of Discipline (UMC) 2024 ¶413.1-3, Complaints Against Bishops
  • governing document Book of Discipline (UMC) 2024 ¶2702.1, chargeable offences, subject to the moratorium at ¶2701.6
  • governing document Book of Discipline (UMC) 2024 ¶2712, Trial of a Bishop

Who may plant or close a church

Closing is the annual conference's decision, not the congregation's: the conference declares a local church closed and its trustees take the property, with an ad interim route between conference sessions and an emergency route where the bishop, a majority of district superintendents, and the district board of church location and building agree that circumstances require immediate action. The paragraph governing the establishment of new congregations has not yet been checked for this profile, and no claim is made here about it.

Who owns the name

The denomination, licensed to the congregation

The finance agency maintains the registrations of the name "United Methodist" and supervises the official insignia, the Cross and Flame, which is a registered trademark. Official United Methodist bodies, local churches among them, may use the insignia to identify United Methodist work; commercial use requires written authorisation from an officer of the agency. In practice the name and mark are the quietest of the denomination's levers and the one most often overlooked in departure disputes, since a congregation that leaves cannot take them along.

Discipline

The Judicial Council is the denomination's court, and its rulings bind: during the disaffiliation window it held that a congregation's departure was not final until a simple majority of the annual conference approved it, which settled the question against congregations that had treated their own vote as sufficient. The separate complaint and trial process for clergy and lay members has not been checked against its paragraphs for this profile, and no claim is made here about its procedure.

Joining and leaving

How a congregation joins

Not established.The route by which an existing independent congregation affiliates with the UMC has not been located in the Discipline for this profile. The governing documents are organised around congregations being established by the annual conference rather than joining it, which may itself be the answer — but until the paragraph is identified, no claim is made.

How a congregation leaves

The governing documents provide no path

There is presently no general disciplinary path for a congregation to leave with its property. From 2019 the Discipline carried a temporary paragraph allowing disaffiliation over the denomination's disagreements about sexuality, on stated terms: a two-thirds vote of the professing members present at a church conference, payment of any unpaid apportionments for the prior twelve months plus a further twelve months, and settlement of a pro rata share of aggregate unfunded pension obligations — with the departure taking effect only when the annual conference approved it by simple majority. That paragraph expired on 31 December 2023 by its own terms and was deleted by the 2024 General Conference. More than 7,600 US congregations used it while it was open.

What leaves with them

Under the expired provision a departing congregation kept its building once it had met the payment terms and the annual conference had approved. It did not keep the name or the insignia, which the finance agency holds. Clergy credentials are held by the annual conference rather than by the congregation, so a pastor leaving with a departing church surrendered or transferred standing rather than carrying it along. With the provision now gone, the property question falls back to the trust of ¶2501.

When the body removes a congregation

The denomination does not expel congregations so much as close them. Where a congregational body's only sanction is to end a relationship, a connectional body acts on the church itself: the annual conference may declare a local church closed and its trustees take the property, which ends the congregation as a United Methodist entity and disposes of its assets in the same motion. There is no procedure by which a congregation is removed from fellowship while continuing to exist and hold its building — the trust makes the two questions inseparable.

Legal form

Corporate structure

The denomination as a whole is not a single corporation that can be sued or that holds title; local churches and conference entities incorporate separately under state law, and the connection is held together by the Discipline and the property trust rather than by a corporate parent. The trust's practical force accordingly varies with the state whose law governs the deed.

Tax status

Local churches are covered automatically by a denomination-wide group tax exemption ruling obtained from the IRS in 1974 and administered by the finance agency under group exemption number 2573. A United Methodist congregation therefore does not apply for its own 501(c)(3) determination; it proves exemption by certifying inclusion in the group ruling. This is a concrete, easily overlooked benefit of connection, and one a departing congregation loses immediately.

Liability

Not established.The denomination's exposure to ascending liability — whether and when a conference or general agency can be reached for a local church's conduct — has not been researched for this profile. It is a genuinely contested area that turns on state law and on the connectional structure, and it deserves proper sourcing rather than a summary.

Further reading

Compare this body with others · How this was built