LGBT

. . . last I heard 104 churches statewide had "disassociated" from the Virginia General Conference.

In my little rural county, five of our ten UMC churches have disassociated. One of them is our biggest Methodist church with about 125 on the roll but only about 40 at services. My church has 104 on the rolls, we do well to have 20 at services.

None of us small churches are paying our way, the general conference is bailing us out; my church has a retired minister who is working for gas money. We don't know how much longer all of us can hang on. We REALLY need to consolidate all the small churches, but whenever that is mentioned, we hear "My great-granddaddy built this church!! It will never close and consolidate!!"