Newspaper Page Text
April 26, 2023
Page 7A
NATION.
DAY OF
PRAYER
SAVE THE DATE
THE NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER
Thursday, May 4, 2023 at Noon
Monroe County Courthouse
Mother of Year noms due May 5
The deadline is 5 p.m. on Friday,
May 5 to nominate your mom as
Monroe County s Mother of the Year
for 2023. Simply write in 400 words
or less why your mom should be
Mother of the Year. The winning
nomination should include specific
details about how mom has sacrificed
to meet her family’s needs. She must
be a Monroe County resident, but
the nominator doesn’t have to be.
Nominations are due at 5 p.m. on
May 5. The winner will be featured in
the Reporter just before Mother’s Day,
May 14, in the May 10 issue.
CHURCH
Continued from Front
said Cook is probably more
sympathetic to the denomi
nation and its efforts to keep
churches under its umbrella.
Several large, conservative
north Georgia churches
have already voted to leave
the conference as denom
inational leadership has
allowed homosexual mar
riage and pastors in many
churches. The conference
gave churches the right to
leave if 2/3 of the congre
gation votes to do so. But
they stipulated that churches
would have to buy their
facilities and property from
the denomination. How
ever, as more churches left,
outgoing bishop Sue Hau-
pert-Johnson announced in
January that the conference
would no longer accept
church votes to leave. Critics
say the North Georgia
conference, the largest in the
U.S., is the only UMC body
in the nation to adopt such a
policy. This has left churches
that object to the denomi
nation’s drift away from the
Bible stuck in the UMC and
unable to vote their way out.
Beard said he thinks the
conference will revisit the
pause on disaffiliation votes
at its annual convention
in June. Beard said a lot of
churches are angry about
the denomination’s pause on
disaffiliation votes, which is
unprecedented. He said 186
of about 1,000 churches in
the North Georgia Con
ference have filed a lawsuit
against the denomination
over the pause. While For
syth UMC is not involved
with the suit, Beard said the
Forsyth UMC administra
tion council had asked the
conference for the right to
vote on disaffiliation.
Parrish said he sees a long,
hard road ahead as Forsyth
UMC tries to navigate a
difficult situation.
“We’ve got a great con
gregation and church,” said
Parrish. “Were all trying to
stick together. It’s a no-win
situation, and everybody’s
gonna lose.”
Parrish said most mem
bers of Forsyth UMC just
want to go to church and go
by what the Bible and the
Methodist Book of Disci
pline say.
Martha Bowman UMC
in Macon, which is in the
South Georgia Conference,
voted on disaffiliating last
week and fell just 3 votes
short of leaving, said Parrish.
Forsyth UMC member
Caroline Edenfield agreed
it’s a touchy issue.
“I see both sides,” said
Edenfield, who works for
the Methodist Church as
director of the Children’s
Home in Macon. She said
she doesn’t know why the
conference is moving Beard.
She said being a finance per
son, she is more pragmatic
and thinks they should wait
and see how it plays out. She
noted that the current UMC
Book of Discipline still
doesn’t accept homosexual
ity, calling it “incompatible
with Christian teaching”.
However many UMC
churches have homosexual
pastors and marry homo
sexuals against that teaching.
The conference has refused
to do anything about it. And
Edenfield conceded the
UMC may change its Book
of Discipline language on
homosexuality next year.
One member of Forsyth
UMC, who asked not to be
identified, told the Reporter
that he hopes the church
will leave, but said it would
not be unanimous. He said
many Forsyth UMC mem
bers have poured themselves
into the church and feel like
it’s being taken away from
them by denominational
leaders who do nothing to
oppose the cultural rot in
society.
He said the church was
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growing under Beard’s
leadership and it sure
seems coincidental that
the denomination would
remove him just as churches
are voting to leave. Sources
told the Reporter that they
think the UMC is moving
Beard and other more
conservative pastors to less
wealthy churches that may
not have the funds to buy
their building and leave the
denomination.
While Beard said he was
disappointed in the decision,
he said that he believes they
will see God’s hand in it in
the long rim. Beard and his
wife will remain in Forsyth
until July when Methodist
pastors typically rotate to
new assignments.
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