Texas Megachurch Votes Today to Leave United Methodist Church

Four thousand seven hundred and seventy-five votes, and nine in ten of them said leave. That is not a narrow split or a disputed recount, it is an overwhelming vote by one of the largest United Methodist congregations in the United States to walk away from the denomination it has belonged to for 110 years.

Highland Park United Methodist Church, known as HPUMC, in Dallas, Texas, held a congregational vote on 25-26 October 2026 on severing ties with The United Methodist Church, the Christian Post and UM News reported. Of 4,775 votes cast, 90.35% voted to leave the denomination, and about a third of the church's professing members voted, the Christian Post reported.

The congregation began on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas 110 years ago, UM News reported. The church council said it aimed to complete the work required by separation by 1 December 2026, the Christian Post reported, and from the following Sunday the congregation would worship as Highland Park Methodist Church, dropping United from its name.

Highland Park Methodist Church Vote: 90.35% Vote to Leave UMC

The vote itself is the human number at the centre of this story, and it is worth pausing on what it means. A vote of 90.35% is a mandate by any measure, even though only about a third of professing members voted, and it means the leadership that sought separation can say the congregation, as far as it voted, spoke with one voice.

The council's stated reason, as reported, was preserving the church's historic autonomy, maintaining its longstanding voice in choosing and protecting its clergy, and remaining who it is as a church that has thrived for 110 years. Those three phrases, autonomy, voice and identity, are the language of a congregation that sees itself as protecting something old rather than breaking something new.

The name change that follows is small in letters and large in meaning. Dropping United from Highland Park United Methodist Church leaves Highland Park Methodist Church, a name that keeps the place and the tradition while removing the denominational link, and it will be the name on the sign from the following Sunday.

Governance and Property Dispute Behind Highland Park UMC Exit

The dispute centres on changes church leaders made to the church's governing documents in November 2022 and a lawsuit brought by the UMC's Horizon Texas Annual Conference, filed in August in a Dallas civil court, over those changes, DNYUZ and the Christian Post reported. The legal outcome is not settled, and the conference lawsuit is ongoing, with property and trust claims disputed.

Highland Park has said it paid more than $12 million in apportionments to the conference and other Methodist organisations since 2022, DNYUZ reported. That figure is the church's own account of what it has contributed while the dispute has run, and it is part of the church's case that it has not walked away from its obligations while arguing about its future.

Bishop Ruben Saenz Jr., head of the Horizon Texas Conference, said the denomination's governing text does not authorise a local church to sever its covenantal relationship unilaterally, as reported by DNYUZ. His words set out the conference's arguement in its own terms, and they should be read as the conference's claim rather than as a settled legal finding.

Does not authorize a local church to unilaterally sever its covenantal relationship.

That quotation is Bishop Saenz's characterisation of the denomination's governing text, as reported by DNYUZ, and the dispute between that reading and the church's reading is now the legal heart of the matter. Membership and size claims beyond the vote figures in this article should not be added without a source, and this article does not add them.

The earlier reporting on this congregation's path to a vote includes the report that a Texas megachurch would vote on leaving the United Methodist Church, which set out the vote before it happened. The story of pastoral change in other large American churches can be followed in Andy Stanley stepping down as North Point senior pastor and Marty Grubbs stepping down after 45 years at Crossings Community Church, which show how leadership transitions are handled elsewhere.

Highland Park Separation Work Aimed for 1 December

The council aims to complete the separation work by 1 December 2026, which gives the congregation about five weeks from the vote to work through the practical steps that follow a decision of this size. What those steps involve in detail has not been set out in the sources, and this article does not invent a checklist for them.

The lawsuit filed in August will continue in the background whatever the council's timetable says, because a congregational vote does not by itself end a court case about governing documents and property. The legal outcome remains open, and the property and trust claims remain disputed, so the vote is a decisive step rather than a final settlement.

For the members who voted, the next Sunday will feel different even if the building looks the same. The name will have changed, the denominational link will have been severed in the congregation's own account, and the work of being Highland Park Methodist Church rather than Highland Park United Methodist Church will have begun in earnest.

Whether the courts agree with the congregation's reading or with the conference's reading is the question that will decide how clean that new beginning really is, and it is a question no vote can answer on its own. The congregation has spoken by 90.35%, the conference has spoken through its bishop and its lawsuit, and the coming weeks will show whether the separation aimed for 1 December holds, or whether the courtroom writes a different ending to a 110-year story that is still, for now, unfinished.

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.