Leaving the UMC

If someone truly feels that God is leading them in a particular direction shouldn't they follow that calling even if the action will be unpopular etc?

I know some might not view this as a fair way of phrasing the question but hey, its my blog. ;-)

Seriously though, 90% of the time most Christians I know would answer that question with a YES.

The only times the answer would normally be NO are when the action in question would be considered sinful. (As in I really feel God wants me to sleep with my boyfriend/girlfriend - or some such statement.)

So I guess the real question before us (I had no idea this was where this post was going) is to ask if Leaving the UMC is sinful.

First, here is a list of links that might me of interest on the question of GracePoint leaving the UMC:

http://www.mandoron.com/
http://andrewconard.wordpress.com/
http://thoughtsofresurrection.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/gracepoint-communityunited-methodist-church/
http://www.kansas.com/news/local/story/718983.html
http://www.mandoron.com/2009/03/03/1186/
http://lyricbrianne.blogspot.com/
http://www.mandoron.com/2009/03/01/sunday-setlist-march-1-2009/
http://godsteknon.blogspot.com/2009/03/gp-leaves-um-church.html
http://bishops.umc.org/Directory/ChurchDetails.asp?mid=222&FAC=131842
http://bishops.umc.org/Directory/RegionalOffices.asp?mid=556&FAC=131842
http://www.godspeedmediagroup.com/gracepoint/Site/Welcome.html
http://www.kswestumc.org/dsite.asp?dv=7
http://www.gracepoint.com/
http://www.gracepointchurch.tv/

The above links are in no particular order. They simply represent everything google seems to know about this topic. Which is naturally everything there is to know since Google is the fount of all knowledge and information ;-)

I think this quote from the Eagle article is informative:

Butts said the move is one that church leaders believe is necessary for the church to do what God has called it to do -- reach as many unchurched people and people who are hurting as possible.

"We're excited about the future that God has for us," he said.

GracePoint Community Church leaders stressed that their church has no malice toward the United Methodist Conference.

"I think the more churches, the better," Butts said.

And this quote:

In the end, Butts said, he hopes people will see that the issue was not the result of fighting within the church.

"It just came down to God's leading us in a different direction," he said.

"I guess at the end of the day, people are not concerned about a denomination. They want to know how you're going to help them change their lives."

So, the leaders of GracePoint believe God was leading them to do this. With that said, the big question I see is this one:

"Is leaving the UMC in this way sinful?"

I don't think so but would be interested in your opinion.