But as Keith Boyette, who next month begins his role as chief executive of the Global Methodist Church, told those watching the broadcast: “Separation is no longer in the future,” he said. “Separation has occurred.”
Boyette was one of a half-dozen preachers who spoke from Indianapolis, building on a theme of exile and return from the Bible’s Exodus story in which the ancient Israelites wandered in the wilderness after they left Egypt before crossing into the Promised Land.
Speakers also gave a nod to King Cyrus, who, according to the Bible, ended the Jewish exile in Babylon and allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple.
“I view myself as your servant to help us in the wilderness get to the Jordan,” said Jay Therrell, the newly elected president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association.
Therrell, a former United Methodist pastor and also a lawyer, this week led 107 churches in the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church to announce their intention to leave for the new Global Methodist Church.
Many other United Methodist churches will be learning about how to begin the process of dissolving their ties to the denomination later this month when regional groups, called conferences, begin their annual meetings.
“It’s incredibly exciting,” said Barbara Taylor, 75, of Raleigh. “It’s getting back to what the church was intended to be in (the New Testament book of) Acts. It’s about preaching and teaching without huge administrative overhead and doing what we were meant to do as a church.”
RELATED: Florida churches among first to begin exit from UMC to new, conservative denomination
This article originally appeared on ReligionNews.com.
