Senior Pastor Kent Replogle of Thornton’s Amazing Grace Community Church said the vote facing delegates in May will have very little impact on his Methodist congregation right away.

His church, begun some 12 years ago, is part of the Free Methodist Church. That’s a group that split off of the main Methodist church more than 100 years ago over abolition.

“We were all one church until 1865, over the issue of slavery,” Replogle said. “The Bishop came to the convention in New York and he had his slaves toting right behind him. That upset a lot of people and they left the convention and went across the street to a pasture and sat under an apple tree, according to the story, and formed the Free Methodist Church.”

Both the Free and United churches are Methodists, both favor the teachings of founder John Wesley and both get their catechism from the Book of Discipline, the written law and doctrine of the Methodist church.

“But they tend to change the Book of Discipline. We tend to follow it,” Replogle said. “They change it to fit their needs, we don’t do that.”

And both versions of the Book of Discipline, for now, are very clear on the topic of LGBTQ rights and marriage equality: Homosexuality, according to the book, is not compatible with Christian teachings, practicing homosexuals cannot be certified as candidates or ordained as ministers and same-sex marriages cannot be conducted in the churches.

He said he was part of the Free Methodist Church’s conference last year that elected three new bishops to guide the church for the next four years.

“But our denomination is growing, thanks to the divisions in the United Methodist Church,” Replogle said. “People are leaving the United Methodist Church but they still want to follow John Wesley and his beliefs and doctrine, so they are coming our direction.”

The Free Methodists would continue to be different from the United Methodists, even from a more conservative faction that could break off. Part of the agreement being discussed for the May convention would split the United Methodists’ assets between the different factions, but Replogle said the Free Methodists would not see any of that.

“We are our own denomination, so we would not be any part of that,” he said. “We have our own bishops, our own headquarters.”