Editor’s Note: The is the second story in a two-part series.

Officials with the United Methodist Church back in late April acknowledged the inevitable breakup of their denomination, according to a report from The Associated Press. Bishop Thomas Bickerton, who became the new president of the UMC Council of Bishops, called the new movement a “sad and sobering reality.”

The two major issues leading to the breakup are differences over same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ clergy. The new Global Methodist Church doctrine includes a belief that marriage is between one man and one woman and clergy must adhere to it.

Methodist membership in the U.S. has fallen from roughly 11 million in 1968 to 6.3 million in 2020.

Bickerton succeeded Louisiana-based Bishop Cynthia Fierro Harvey as president of the Council of Bishops. He said, “There is no perfect church. The constant fighting, the vitriolic rhetoric, the punitive behavior have no place in how we preserve and promote.”

Harvey said, according to a Religion News Service (RNS) report, “While I will always wish we could remain in this church, I’m clear some cannot. I grieve and regret that more than words can express, but I have no interest in serving an echo chamber.

“I am a big-tent church person who believes that every voice is important to the whole, sometimes as annoying as that might be —that every part of the body is important to the whole,” Harvey said. “I also realize that it might be time to bless and send our sisters and brothers who cannot remain under the big tent.”

The Rev. Keith Boyette is chairman of the Global Methodist Church’s Transitional Leadership Council and a United Methodist minister in Virginia. He said he has already been approved as a clergy person in the new denomination.

The AP said it is easier for clergy to leave the UMC than an entire church congregation to leave the UMC, which has to follow a layered process.

Boyette criticized the actions of some members of the Council of Bishops, including the decision to further delay the General Conference to 2024. He suggested some bishops were intentionally blocking churches from using certain processes for exiting the denomination.

The Book of Discipline of the UMC, which contains doctrine and laws, already includes a provision — Paragraph 2548.2 — that allows a congregation to transfer to another evangelical denomination with the consent of the presiding bishop and the annual conference, among other requirements. However, skeptics question whether it applies to a new denomination that was launched May 1.

The Rev. J.J. Mannschreck, pastor of the Flushing United Methodist Church in Flushing, Mich., told the RNS he plans to transfer his credentials to the new denomination. His church will also discuss and vote on whether to join the new denomination.

Mannschreck’s father, the Rev. Jack Mannschreck, is pastor of the Central United Methodist Church in Waterford, Mich. Unlike his son, he plans to stay in the denomination he has served for the past 38 years.

The elder Mannschreck said when he considers Jesus’ words to “judge not lest ye be judged” and the fact he’s never served a church that didn’t have any gay people in it, he comes down on the side of full inclusion for LGBTQ United Methodists.

The father said he and his son will continue to love Jesus and each other. He added, “My best hope is that we will be stronger denominations together — but we really do need to get back to work on issues that should define us, such as the grace of God.”

Gary A. Shockley, in a Facebook post reported by United Methodist Insight, an online journal, probably summed up where the UMC needs to be.

“This is a day of new beginnings for the United Methodist Church as it relaunches today,” Shockley said. “A church that welcomes diversity of thought, theological understanding, gender, race, and all of God’s children. A ‘big tent’ church where we don’t have to all believe alike to love alike. This is a day of new beginnings.”