United Methodist Church

The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelicalism. The present denomination was founded in 1968 in Dallas, Texas, by union of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. The UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley in England, as well as the Great Awakening in the United States. As such, the church's theological orientation is decidedly Wesleyan. It embraces liturgical worship, holiness, and evangelical elements.

The United Methodist Church has a connectional polity, a typical feature of a number of Methodist denominations. It is organized into conferences. The highest level is called the General Conference and is the only organization which may speak officially for the UMC. The church is a member of the World Council of Churches, the World Methodist Council, and other religious associations.

As of 2022, the UMC had 5,424,175 members and 29,746 churches in the United States. As of 2022, it had 9,984,925 members and 39,460 churches worldwide. In 2015, the Pew Research Center estimated that 3.6 percent of the US population, or nine million adult adherents, identified with the United Methodist Church, revealing a much larger number of adherents than registered members.

On January 3, 2020, a group of Methodist leaders proposed a plan to split the United Methodist Church over issues of sexual orientation (particularly same-sex marriage) and create a new traditionalist Methodist denomination; the Global Methodist Church was formed in 2022. Prior to the establishment of the Global Methodist Church, some Methodist congregations had already left the UMC to join the Free Methodist Church, a traditionalist Methodist denomination aligned with the Wesleyan-holiness movement. Other former United Methodist congregations joined various conservative Methodist denominations, such as the Congregational Methodist Church, or became members of the Association of Independent Methodists. As of December 30, 2023, the number of UMC churches in the United States that were approved for disaffiliation stood at 7,660. This figure represented approximately one-quarter of the UMC churches in the United States. In May 2024, the United Methodist Church General Conference repealed bans on LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage. Provided by Wikipedia