The United Methodist Church crackup, detailed

 Shock me that the (currently) second-largest United Methodist church in the US is in Southlake, tilts semi-wingnut within the UMC, and has its growth being driven by Californication. 

More seriously, "shock me" that the departing churches are in general, older and whiter. They're also more Southern, as well as more theologically conservative in general.  While "teh gay" and official UMC "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay ministers is driving the split, larger social justice issues — or resistance to them — in the post-George Floyd era are also in play.

Also shock me that there's not one but two official conservative denominational offshoots. Once the tent is shrunk, there's usually a fight about just how small it should be. Liturgy (including inclusive language), worship styles, hymnody and other things come into play. Also, within more conservative Methodists, there may be frisson, or fission, between modern conservative evangelical types and traditional conservative Methodists.

And, follow the money:

Mr. Bickerton, the bishop, said that many of the congregations that left the United Methodists seemed to be motivated as much by a desire for financial independence as by deep theological differences. “We’ve learned this is not as much about human sexuality as we thought,” he said. “This is about power, control and money.” ... Because of its extraordinary growth, White’s Chapel paid the denomination about $600,000 annually, and had lost confidence that its money was being well spent by a remote administrative bureaucracy, said Rev. Larry Duggins, a longtime member who the church hired to help manage the separation process.

And, follow a church polity matter.

In Southlake, congregants were increasingly wary of the direction of the national denomination’s theology. But they were also unhappy with the Methodist policy of moving pastors to new locations every three years.

Methodists aren't alone here. Catholics reassign priests about every 4-5 years. And, within Methodism in the US, it's been a policy for decades if not longer. The idea, in both churches, as I understand it, is precisely to keep an individual minister from building up a church-politics power base. Especially within Protestant churches that might be a bit less hierarchical than Catholicism, the idea of megachurch pastors within their midst is problematic. They look at the Southern Baptist Convention and say they don't want that. (Surprised my former-life conservative wing of Lutheranism doesn't have more problems with this.)

Also, I think that like Catholics and Episcopalians (whose own fissures, per the 1928 Book of Common Prayer Anglican-type US Episcopalian fracture), there's church property ownership issues with the Methodist split. That too is a matter of follow the money.