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Georgia UMC church leaves denomination in support of LGBTQ rights

A church in Savannah, Georgia, is the first congregation in recent years to depart the United Methodist fold in support of LGBTQ inclusion.

Over the past four years, multiple congregations have left the denomination in response to its intensifying disagreement over how accepting to be of homosexuality. Most have done so citing weariness with the debate or a lack of enforcement of the denomination’s bans on same-sex weddings and “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy.

United Methodist civil rights activist Gil Caldwell dies at 86

Gil Caldwell, a civil rights activist who later in life stood up for gay rights in the United Methodist Church, died Septem­ber 4 at the age of 86.

The native of Greensboro, North Carolina, struggled with cancer, his son said on Twitter. The United Methodist News Service reported he had been in hospice care in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Deaf ministries flourish with virtual worship

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the array of worship services offered by Lovers Lane United Methodist Church included one in American Sign Lan­guage. About two dozen people came on a typical Sunday.

On March 22, when the Dallas church could no longer safely meet in person due to the fast-spreading coronavirus, the sign language service moved online.

It came together quickly—and a bit primitively. For want of a tripod, a cell phone with a video camera was propped up by hymnals on an upright piano.