Archive: Why I Left the UM Church

by William David Epps, Minister of Outreach, First Assembly of God and Campus Minister, Mesa College, Grand Junction, Colorado

Without question my decision to leave the United Methodist ministry was the most important decision I have ever made in my professional career … and by far the most difficult. My early childhood memories include a Sunday school class at the little neighborhood Methodist church (not United back then) where a portly, white-haired lady would delight in telling various Bible stories to the enraptured children gathered around her feet.

My youth and teen years were full of hayrides, church softball teams, passing notes and giggling in church, often boring UMYF programs, and tremendously uplifting spiritual retreats in the area mountains. All these were years of satisfaction and contentment as I pondered just who God really was and the significance He had for me. The teen years ended in the madness and nightmare of the Vietnam era. The aloofness in which I had held God did not suffice for this young frightened Marine who was learning the ways of adulthood–how to slash with a bayonet, to destroy with an M-16, to learn the ways of death.

One lonely humid night, I turned to a passage in a tract given to me by a Navy chaplain and found the words of Isaiah 41:10. Earlier in the day, I had cried to God for some assurance of His presence, of His reality. Now the words leaped from the page, “Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” There, away from home, with no church, no pew, no pulpit, no preacher, a young United Methodist became a Christian. My attitude was new, my heart light. Deep within me was the certain knowledge that I must share this Jesus, whom I now knew, with others who would listen.

Time passed and my service in the Marine Corps came to a long anticipated conclusion. University studies and work on my license to preach began. School years were hard but happy. I served in local churches working with children and young people. The day came when I was assigned to pastor a small rural church whose people were delightful. I endeavored to teach them what little I knew about the ways of God and, in turn, they responded in love and a great abundance of patience. They grew; I grew. Then I was transferred.

All went well outwardly for the next couple of years, but the more time passed, the more I read, the more I studied and learned, the more disturbed and unsettled I became. What was it that was beginning to create turmoil in my spirit? What was it that would eventually bring me to the determination that I must leave the United Methodist pulpit, the pulpit that I had dreamed of occupying for so many years?

— Perhaps it was when I realized that all church members aren’t Christians and don’t intend to be.

— Perhaps it was when I noticed that the amount of apportionments paid appeared to have a greater priority than the winning of new converts.

— Perhaps it was when I detected that pluralism meant that liberals advance and that evangelicals are often farmed out to charges where their influence would be minimal.

— Perhaps it was when I saw that ministers who come to ministers’ meetings wear masks concealing their real selves, that they segregate themselves according to the seminary attended or the types of churches pastored, that even ministers are not above petty gossip and undercutting other ministers who appear to have more success than themselves.

— Perhaps it was when I first heard that our UM Church, my church, was considering the ordination of homosexuals in vivid violation of God’s Word.

— Perhaps it was when I discovered that even a great many pastors did not believe in the fundamentals of Scriptural teachings.

— Perhaps it was when I read reports that my denomination seemed to be siding with Marxist-terrorists in Africa.

— Perhaps it was when I found that many ministers, including those of various minorities, seemed to be more interested in proclaiming their own particular rights than proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Or perhaps much of the problem was local, rather than denominational, even in my own parish and family. Indeed, several incidents that occurred had a definite bearing on my decision to vacate the pulpit. Like the time I came home to find my wife in tears because a trusted church member with whom my wife had shared deep, confidential information had broken trust and informed others of the concerns my wife had revealed.

Then there was the time I had requested an increase in travel allotment, after gas prices had doubled, only to be told, “Preacher, you’re just going to have to learn to manage your checkbook better.” Or the time I had spent 72 hours at the hospital without sleep or food at the bedside of a critically injured child who was not expected to live only to return to my parish to learn that a trusted board member had been visiting members of the congregation and complaining that I, as pastor, “never visited” the sick and shut-ins. The child, by the way, lived and gave his heart to Christ in the hospital.

Or perhaps it was when I saw young Jesus people, new converts, and charismatics, who once were full of life and vigor lose their enthusiasm as church leaders discouraged their interaction in the services. Though a very hard thing for me to do, I assisted these new converts in finding fellowship elsewhere. Perhaps it was when I discovered that at that time, in my area, to support Good News, conservative seminaries, or the charismatic renewal was tantamount to cultism, in the views of many, both ministers and laity.

Perhaps it was having few or no close friends, no sense of intimacy. Or maybe it was none of these factors. In reality, perhaps the problems were within me: my inexperience, my frustrations, my lack of knowledge, my lack of understanding and patience. Or maybe it was a combination of all these factors.

Why did I not share my questions and confusions with others? Fear, I suppose. I had already learned through a series of broken confidences that it is not wise for a pastor to share too much of his personal life with his congregation. My district superintendent sensed something was wrong and attempted to bring my feelings out in the open, but I always knew that this man who was asking me to bare my soul was the same man who would chart my life with his influence in pastoral appointments. And, after all, would it really solve anything (at least that was my attitude). Other ministers? The two ministers I spoke with had similar feelings and confusions and one of those later vacated his own pulpit. (I didn’t confer with my liberal brethren.)

For weeks I prayed and wept and sought answers: “But Lord, this is the church of my childhood. I have worked, studied, and suffered to be able to stand in this pulpit!”

Ultimately, the decision was mine. In late January of 1977, on a dark and bitterly cold night, I picked up the telephone and dialed my district superintendent and resigned. After the deed was done, I hung up the telephone, put on my coat and walked the mile to my church. I wandered through the Sunday school rooms, shot basketball in the parking area, strolled through the old cemetery, and stood for a long time looking at the stars. Re-entering the building, I walked down the aisle, looking at each pew, remembering each one who would sit there come Sunday morning. I picked a few tunes on the piano and then stood behind the pulpit for the last time. Finally, in the darkened sanctuary, I fell at the altar and cried all night long.

Many would not understand and I’m not certain I fully understood either. Some ministers would see me as a traitor and some members would suspect that I had rebelled against God. But others would stand by, not really caring about the rightness or wrongness, but would concern themselves with my spiritual welfare and the welfare of my family.

As I reflect upon all this five years later, I truly believe that, for me, to have remained would have meant spiritual disaster. Others have fared quite well. I did—and do—believe that the UM Church, the church of my childhood, is in serious trouble. Many social, political, and Scriptural questions have yet to be resolved. Membership has been eroding at a dramatic rate. But there is hope. I see hope in the United Methodist grassroots evangelical groups, in the Good News influence, in the charismatic renewal. But most of all there is hope in the God who spoke to man, including the young Marine years earlier, and promised to strengthen, to uphold, and to never, never give up. In Him lies any and all hope we may have for the questions, for the confusion, and for the future of Methodism, of Man, and of the World.