There’s yet another new option for churches departing The United Methodist Church.
But this new model is more complicated — and requires a new vocabulary — than even the UMC or its breakaway group. the Global Methodist Church.
Launched by White’s Chapel Church in Southlake, Texas, the new denomination envisions clusters of up to 10 congregations centered around “cathedral” churches. Each cluster will be called a “college.” These colleges, taken together, become a “collegium.”
White’s Chapel, which draws about 2,000 people in Sunday attendance, will be the first cathedral church to form a college around itself. Ideally, congregations in the college will be located within a 100-mile radius of the cathedral church, according to promotional material published on the new denomination’s website.
While a novel concept today, leaders say they are restoring an ancient model of church life and organization.
The other notable “collegiate” model of churches is a small network of congregations in New York City established in 1628 in the Dutch Reformed tradition. The best-known of those today are Marble Collegiate Church and Middle Collegiate Church.
The new Methodist Collegiate Church model envisions a much larger network spread over larger geographic areas. But its roots also reach back into history.
The group’s Book of Discipline will be based on the Articles of Faith of the Methodist Episcopal Church first ratified in 1808. The group also will embrace the Wesleyan “quadrilateral” as a teaching tool. The quadrilateral expresses four sources of theological and doctrinal development: Scripture, tradition, reason and Christian experience.
White’s Chapel, founded in 1871 in a mostly rural area, today sits amid one of the most affluent northern suburbs of the Dallas-Fort Wort Metroplex. Southlake, Texas, also is one of the most conservative communities in a conservative state — and has become Ground Zero for conservative efforts to take over local school boards, ban books and limit teaching on American history, race, gender and sexuality.
White’s Chapel voted in November 2022 to leave the UMC, joining hundreds of conservative churches departing mainly over concerns about LGBTQ inclusion.
The Methodist Collegiate Church will offer a “centrist” denomination “that welcomes all people, makes space for a variety of points of view, and strives to set aside differences in order to faithfully follow where the Holy Spirit leads,” its publicity says.
As of now, White’s Chapel is the only church in the new denomination, but dozens of other congregations are in conversation about joining, the group said. The process for joining the MCC has not yet opened.
In a Q&A section, the group answers a question about the difference between it and the new Global Methodist Church. “The MCC is focused on empowering the local church and sharing leadership authority,” the website states. “We seek to limit the discipline at the collegium level to doctrines we hold in common and the organizational and connectional structures we choose to employ. We emphasize connectionalism as an organizing principle.”
On other significant issues:
- Clergy and church staff will be able to manage their pension plans through Wespath, the entity used by the UMC.
- Churches entering the collegium will be required to adhere to the MCC’s Book of Discipline. There will be no trust clause, an issue that has entangled churches desiring to leave the UMC, which technically owns all church properties.
- “Educational requirements will be clarified and made more flexible. Sacramental authority will be granted to deacons and licensed lay leaders in their context.”
- The collegium will have a Commission on Ministry and a Commission on Education.
- The collegium will be led by a dean elected by the colleges every four years.
- Local churches will approve and supervise their ordained and licensed leaders.
- Each college will maintain a Commission on Ministry to administer ordination and licensing processes.
Related articles:
Two Baptist seminaries among six ‘recommended’ by new Global Methodist Church
Foundry Network offers third alternative to disaffected UMC churches
Why breaking up is so hard to do for United Methodists: Connectionalism
Most congregations exiting the UMC are white and located in the South