The General Conference 2024 promises to be a consequential meeting for the UMC. A number of challenges face the denomination, and those challenges have only been exacerbated by the postponement of the 2020 meeting. The last year, the UMC has also faced a spate of disaffiliations, local churches who voted to leave the denomination and were given leeway to do so under a 2019 special addendum to the Book of Discipline.