AMARILLO, Texas (RNS) — Earlier this year, the seven United Methodist churches in this city in the Texas Panhandle voted to leave the country’s second-largest Protestant denomination over theological questions about homosexuality and gender identity.
Since 2019, in a process dragged out by the COVID-19 pandemic and denominational infighting, hundreds of churches across Texas — and thousands across the U.S. — have taken advantage of a protocol allowing local churches to disaffiliate from the half-century-old denomination while keeping their real estate and paying off their clergy pension obligations.
But the departure of all seven UMC churches in this city of 200,000 made it the largest city in the nation known to be without a UMC church and left nowhere for those who felt an allegiance to the denomination to go.
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The Rev. Margie McNeir, an 83-year-old UMC minister who had retired last year from the city’s oldest church, Polk Street Methodist, was determined that the UMC wouldn’t become extinct in Amarillo.
“It was the first time in our lives that we had lived somewhere where we did not have a church home,” McNeir said.
In February, after the existing UMC churches in Amarillo had voted to leave or would do so soon, McNeir, along with another retired pastor, held a meeting to see how many people among the seven churches wanted to remain with the United Methodists. Less than a month later, they held their first service in a senior living home. By the following Sunday, it became clear that the remainers were going to need more space.
The Rev. Margie McNeir joins in waiting for a group photograph of members of the Amarillo United Methodist Church after its chartering service on June 4, 2023, in Amarillo, Texas. (Photo by Sam Hodges, UM News)
“We were starting something new. I kept emphasizing that we needed to think about this as we were putting new wine into new wineskins. We were forming a United Methodist church that was not going to be a clone of any one of the seven churches that were here in Amarillo,” said McNeir.
Since April, the group has been meeting at St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church in Amarillo. On June 4, the group was officially chartered as Amarillo United Methodist Church.
It made sense that the newest UMC church in Amarillo would rise out of Polk Street Methodist. Established in 1888, the church stands out for its delicate stained glass, intricate moldings and Gothic-inspired architecture. Members describe it as the flagship Methodist church in its corner of Texas.
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“Polk Street has a long, long, long history as the founding Christian Church in Amarillo, Texas, and I had been a part of that church since I was a 10-year-old,” said Gary Pitner, now 67, who helped organize the new church.
