Southern Congregational Methodist?

[TC2]

What can you tell me?
How do they differ from reg Methodists?
What to expect at church?
How similar/differnt than Baptists?

Thanks so much!

 

[GraceSeeker]

I had never heard of them before, so I had to go to their website http://www.scmchurch.com/scmchrch/p1.html to learn about them.


One of the major differences between this group and say the United Methodist Church, which is the largest Methodist denomination in the word, is found in this part of their description of themselves:

You need to say our full name or you will get us confused with someone else. We are Southern Congregational Methodist.

Congregational is intended to suggest that each congregation owns it's own property and elects is own pastor. Methodist identifies us as Wesley Armenian in doctrine. We are truly Methodist in the John Wesley tradition.

In the United Methodist Churches, all local property and buildings are ultimately the property of the annual conference, not the local congregation. Also, the pastors are appointed by the bishop, so each pastor goes where he/she is sent and each congregation receives that appointed pastors. Of course both pastor and congregation have some say in the process, but the local church and pastor do not determine who, when, or where a pastor is hired or fired. We work on the intinerate system, which the Southern Congregational Methodist obviously do not. It is structured for ministry and government more like congregational churches (hence the name) like the UCC, Assemblies of God, or Disciples of Christ.

It appears that there are exactly 29 Southern Congregational Methodist Churches in the country, all in the south, so that might effect their ability to find pastors. My guess is that it was a group that split off because they had some issue with the way property was handled in one of the former Methodist bodies from which it came. Their doctrinal positions don't appear to be out of line with the more conservative side of Methodism that I know.

 

[TC2]

Thanks, Grace.

Suppose I'll see how it goes if we attend this weekend.