United Methodist

The building, built in 1923, was funded entirely by women.

Here, in the middle of a bland industrial park that looks like a self-storage facility, a new church is emerging.

United Methodist clergy have been through the wringer in recent years, with a worldwide pandemic, a church schism and the ongoing decline of one of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations.

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.

The North Georgia Conference had barred churches wishing to leave the UMC from disaffiliating before the 2024 General Conference.

United Methodist bishops have proposed a five-day meeting of the denomination’s global decision-making body, the General Conference, in May 2026. The announcement comes at the end of a weekend that saw hundreds of United Methodist churches in the United States leave the denomination.

United Methodist bishops from across the globe are meeting this week for the first time in person since the COVID-19 pandemic.

A North Carolina Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed last year by 36 United Methodist churches demanding to sever their ties to the denomination.