What would happen to the UB affiliate churches?
This is a special category that was created 30 years ago to accommodate former Evangelical United Brethren churches that didn’t want to go along with the merger into what is now the United Methodist Church. A special category was required because those churches had some lodge members on their roles (they were forbidden to take in any new lodge members). The unwritten expectation was that they would become full-member churches, but to date, most have not. The status of UB affiliate congregations will need to be discussed. (We currently have four affiliate churches in Central Conference and three in Mid-Atlantic conference.) The Missionary Church does have a category called “affiliate church,” but it’s totally different. It’s for certain types of unorganized churches, and the affiliate status can’t exceed three years.
