by Steve | Jan 4, 2019 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
Bishops and leaders of the United Methodist Korean Caucus gather to discuss the current issues of the special General Conference. The meeting took place Dec. 2 at Calvary Korean United Methodist Church in East Brunswick, N.J. Photo by Thomas Kim, UMNS.
“If the One Church Plan passes, KUMC would have difficulty in accepting an LGBT bishop assigned to the Korean UMCs due to its cultural and moral traditions,” said the Rev. Paul Chang, executive director of the denomination’s Korean Ministry Plan. “The new definition of marriage also would be something KUMC would be struggling with in the future, too.”
According to a United Methodist News Service article by Thomas Kim, many clergy within the Korean Caucus specifically raised concerns about the One Church Plan during a Dec. 3 meeting at Calvary Korean United Methodist Church in East Brunswick, New Jersey, between five bishops and 25 other church leaders.
The One Church Plan is one of the proposals heading to the special General Conference on Feb. 23-26. It allows congregations to host same-sex weddings, and conferences to ordain openly gay clergy.
Bishop John Schol of the Greater New Jersey Conference made the case for the One Church Plan, which he claimed “gives us an opportunity for all of us to move on and to focus on the mission and on the other greater ministries.”
According to the news report, many of the bishops’ listeners were skeptical.
The Rev. Kwangtae Kim from the Chicago First Korean United Methodist Church asked the bishops whether they are aware of the impact of the One Church Plan upon Korean churches. “Those who want to break a church are using the issue of homosexuality as a good justification for their behaviors,” he said. “The crises that the Korean Presbyterian Church (USA) have now could happen to the KUMC.”
The Rev. Timothy Ahn of Arcola United Methodist Church in Paramus, New Jersey, asked for wisdom and advice from the bishops. “If the One Church Plan is passed, then how should I explain the meaning of a marriage to my congregants as a local church pastor?” he asked.
The Rev. T.J. Kim of Salem Korean United Methodist Church in Schaumburg, Illinois, shared his concern about the plan. “Protecting the family is one of the core values that the Korean church has. Maintaining this value is an important ministry. The One Church Plan can eliminate the foundation on which Korean churches stand.”
Thomas Kim’s entire news article can be read HERE.
by Steve | Jan 4, 2019 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter, Uncategorized
Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco. Photo courtesy of Google street view.
By Thomas Lambrecht –
New action has taken place by the California-Nevada Annual Conference filing suit against Glide Memorial United Methodist Church over Trust Clause issues. Such action shows what might happen in the event other congregations try to leave the denomination.
In a previous post, I described the conflict going on between California-Nevada Annual Conference Bishop Minerva Carcaño and the 89-year-old Glide Memorial Church, on paper one of the largest congregations in our denomination. The conflict revolved around the fact that Glide no longer conducts Christian worship and is not faithful to United Methodist doctrine and practice. Instead, they have embraced a form of interfaith “worship” that encompasses atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, and many others in addition to Christians (and one assumes, some United Methodists).
The crisis erupted when the pastor at Glide resigned because he was not able to exercise full leadership of the church, unhindered by the Glide Foundation’s board of directors. Longtime Pastor Cecil Williams, while long retired, still appears to be making the leadership decisions for the church. Bishop Carcaño attempted to appoint a new pastor, but the Foundation board rejected the person. She then appointed all the pastoral staff to different churches, leaving Glide without a regular pastor.
Six months of negotiations between the conference and Glide have not yielded a fruitful resolution to the disagreement. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the conference recently filed suit against Glide in order to protect the Trust Clause and the conference’s ownership of Glide’s property.
The Glide Foundation board maintains that the conflict is about the conference trying to gain control of the millions of dollars held by the Foundation, 95 percent of which goes to support social service ministries in the community. Carcaño assures that the conflict is about making Glide accountable to United Methodist doctrine and processes and honoring the original intent of donor Lizzie Glide, who established the foundation in order to provide for a Methodist Church in San Francisco.
There have been conflicting decisions about church trusts in California, but the most recent decisions have favored the denomination. The controversy will potentially now play out in a courtroom that will determine the obligations of the Glide Foundation in relation to The United Methodist Church.
One hopes that this high-profile lawsuit is not a precursor to what might happen in the future if congregations try to leave The United Methodist Church. General Conference can alleviate this concern by passing a fair, equitable, and standardized exit path for congregations as a part of its actions at the February special session.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.
by Steve | Jun 29, 2018 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
Pacific Northwest Conference Communications Team Photo, UMNS.
By Thomas Lambrecht –
It is refreshing to discover that, for at least one very progressive bishop, there is a limit to how progressive a church can be before it ceases to be Methodist. Bishop Minerva Carcaño of the California-Nevada Annual Conference has been in the news for the last several weeks because of her confrontation with the leadership of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco, a church with a well-established reputation for being the largest United Methodist church in the Western Jurisdiction and among the largest in the United States.
Carcaño has refused to appoint any pastor to Glide this year in a dispute with the church that may even lead to the congregation’s attempting to leave the denomination. The church’s last senior pastor, the Rev. Jay Williams, lasted less than a year before resigning to return to his previous appointment in Boston. The two associate pastors on staff are being reappointed to other churches. No new pastors are being appointed to the church at this time, and the district superintendent is arranging for weekly pulpit supply and pastoral care.
The concerns that have led to this situation are theological, as well as financial and related to power and control.
The Rev. Cecil Williams served the church as lead pastor from 1964 until his “retirement” in 2000. In 1967 he removed the cross from the sanctuary in an attempt to make Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Wiccans, and atheists/agnostics feel comfortable attending the church. According to Bishop Carcaño, however, it appears that in attempting to reach out to non-Christians, the very basis of the gospel was compromised.
In an open letter, Carcaño stated, “Leaders from these [non-Christian] constituencies are quick to publicly state that they do not want the Celebrations, or the church, to be United Methodist or Christian in any form. Sunday Celebrations are uplifting concerts, but lack the fundamentals of Christian worship. Baptisms are conducted periodically but in the name of the people rather than from a Christian understanding of Baptism. Holy Communion was done away with some time ago and only introduced back into the life of the congregation this past Spring, but outside of the Celebration gatherings and with much resistance. We seek to be in good and loving relationship with persons of other faiths and beliefs, and those who claim no faith. However, this should never cause us to lose our own faith.”
According to Carcaño, “the great majority of the participants at Glide’s Sunday Celebrations claim other faiths.” If Baptism has not been administered as a Christian sacrament, one wonders whether membership has been faithful to the vows mandated by the Discipline and found in the Hymnal. It’s possible that many of the over 13,000 members reported by Glide are in fact not even Christian and have not taken vows affirming Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Additionally, “there are also serious concerns about the governance and financial administration of the church,” Carcaño declared. “The church has no organizational structure to fulfill its responsibilities as per The Book of Discipline, and has not had a United Methodist organizational structure for decades. The only body that functions in any leadership capacity is a group of congregational leaders hand-picked by Cecil Williams who have never been elected or recognized by the congregation.”
Glide Memorial United Methodist Church.
The question here is who really runs Glide Church? It appears that the Glide Foundation, formed by Williams in 2000, is really the governing entity for the congregation. The Foundation receives millions of dollars a year for the social outreach ministry of the church, housing and feeding the homeless, providing ministry related to HIV/AIDS, and many other worthwhile projects. In a guest editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, Williams stated: “The Glide board of trustees controls the foundation’s resources, of which 95 percent support social programming, and 5 percent go toward church activities.”
Responding also in a guest editorial in the Chronicle, Carcaño wrote, “In May, I attempted to appoint a senior pastor to Glide Memorial who was welcomed by the congregational leaders, but rejected by the Board of Trustees of the Glide Foundation.” So the Foundation apparently controls the church.
Behind all of this lies the former lead pastor, Williams, and his wife, Janice Mirikitani. Despite the fact that there have been four lead pastors appointed to the church since 2000, including now-bishop Karen Oliveto, Williams has continued to maintain leadership of the church and the Foundation. Carcaño described it this way: “No pastor has been allowed to exercise their rightful authority or responsibilities while serving at Glide. To this day, Cecil Williams and his wife, Janice Mirikitani, make all decisions in the background at Glide.”
“The Glide Foundation runs the business of the Foundation under the church’s 501(c)(3), yet renders no financial reports through United Methodist disciplinary processes,” Carcaño went on. “Appointed pastors are left to alone protect the resources of the church yet have no access to the full financial records of the church, nor do they have any say over the use of the church property.” In fact, pastors did not even receive keys to the church building, nor has there been a recent audit of the Foundation’s books. While the Foundation shelters its finances under the church’s tax-exempt status, there appears to be little or no independent financial accountability.
Bishop Carcaño should be applauded for attempting to bring Glide back into compliance with the United Methodist Discipline. I’m glad she stated in her editorial, “As United Methodists, we respect all faiths, love all people, and are committed to working with persons of other faiths and goodwill to make the world a better place. We also want to sustain our beliefs as Methodists.”
This is exactly the kind of accountability and supervision that has been lacking from many of our bishops in recent decades. One wonders where the seven bishops were who presided over the California-Nevada Conference prior to Carcaño, while all of this was developing. Since 2000, Bishops Beverly Shamana and Warner Brown should have at least stopped Williams from continuing to exercise pastoral authority when no longer the appointed pastor to the church. Indeed, in many parts of the country, a pastor who retires from a congregation is not allowed to even participate in his or her former congregation for a period of at least a year and in some cases never.
At this point, it is impossible to say how this conflict might turn out. It will be interesting to see if Glide can be brought back under the umbrella of United Methodism, or whether they have departed so far from the doctrine and governance of our church that restoration is impossible. But reasserting the denomination’s discipline and reestablishing healthy theological and structural boundaries are struggles worth having.
No one ought to confuse Bishop Carcaño with being a card-carrying evangelical or even a consistent upholder of the order of the church. There are many other ways in which Carcaño is not abiding by the Discipline. And this act of attempted accountability does not mean revival is around the corner. Even if Glide is restored to the church, it will never be conservative in theology. However, Carcaño’s willingness to exercise the accountability expected of her office as bishop demonstrates that it is possible to hold one another accountable in love for the sake of the mission of the church. If all our other bishops were willing to consistently and fairly follow her example, it would go a long way toward restoring the trust in the Council of Bishops that has been so thoroughly shattered.
“While the cross was removed from the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church sanctuary in 1967, the cross still stands on the tower of the church, at the corner of Taylor and Ellis streets, as a beacon of hope to the people of the Tenderloin and the greater San Francisco area,” Bishop Carcaño wrote in the Chronicle. “Glide Memorial United Methodist Church must remain true to the mission of the United Methodist Church to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. There are no enemies here. There is only good work to be done.”
For the sake of the gospel and the reputation of The United Methodist Church, we should all pray for her endeavor.
You can read more extensive coverage of the Glide situation here and here.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.
by Steve | Jun 25, 2018 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
By Thomas Lambrecht –
“Here we are today, unable to face the reality of a deeply divided church that can no longer function in a healthy way in unity. And we are unable to consider an option that graciously and respectfully allows congregations and clergy to go their separate ways to pursue ministry that they believe honors God,” said the Rev. Thomas Lambrecht, vice president of Good News, in his address to the Wesleyan Covenant Association of the Iowa Annual Conference.
“Instead, we have a proposal for separation within the church, which is the Connectional Conference Plan. And we have two proposals for separation from the church – a “One Church Plan” that separates out evangelicals and a Traditional Plan that separates out progressives.
“So we are left with no choice but to fight – and fight to win. Our battle is not against people, but for the Gospel. We fight for the faith once for all entrusted to the saints (Jude 3). We are not in this battle alone,” said Lambrecht, a member of the Commission on a Way Forward.
“There will be a Traditional Plan put forward at General Conference. It will retain our current biblical position on marriage and sexual ethics, and it will make it easier to enforce that position across the church. And the Traditional Plan will graciously open the door for those who because of conscience cannot live within the boundaries set by our church, setting them free to follow the leading they have from God.
“This plan is a faithful way forward,” Lambrecht concluded. “It is faithful to the Bible. It is faithful to 2,000 years of Christian teaching. It is faithful to the more than seven generations of men and women who built the church that we now call home. It is faithful to a global church that overwhelmingly holds to a traditional understanding of morality and biblical interpretation.
“We can and we must fight for this faithful way forward. We owe it to ourselves and to those who come after us to take our stand on the truth of the Gospel.”
Click HERE to watch Rev. Lambrecht’s complete address.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.
by Steve | Jun 15, 2018 | In the News
By Carolyn Moore –
As Annual Conference season approaches, conversations are guaranteed to start heating up. Amidst high emotions, Rev. Carolyn Moore, lead pastor of Mosaic Church in Evans, GA, reflects on discussions she would like to see the United Methodist Church having.
“Let’s talk Christologically,” Rev. Moore writes. “Does the conversation about the future of the UMC begin with Jesus? If my experience is any indication, then the Lordship of Jesus–the exclusive nature of Jesus–is where we in the United Methodist Church part ways long before we ever get to the topic of sexual ethics. In the UMC, there is a great divergence around the nature and role of Jesus Christ; yet, we spend all our energy on other things. We rarely acknowledge what is. What is, for those of us who embrace an orthodox understanding of faith and truth, is that Jesus is the most true being. Those of us who are committed to absolute truth (and that Jesus alone embodies that Truth) also believe deep in our spirits that the people we like and the people we have feelings for and the people for which we have great compassion and the people we want to see living holy lives and the people we want to see in Heaven are not the authors of our faith. The author of our faith is Jesus Christ. In other words, we have a Person-centered faith, not a people-centered faith. Our conversations must reflect this ‘Kingdom down’ perspective while resisting the urge of a ‘humanity up’ perspective. If we start with Jesus Christ, I suspect we will find plenty to discuss and (grievously) much on which we fundamentally disagree.”
Click HERE to read her entire column.
by Steve | Jun 15, 2018 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
First United Methodist Church, Louisville, Mississippi.
By Thomas Lambrecht –
Much has been made of the ability of congregations to leave The United Methodist Church with their property through a negotiated settlement with their annual conference. Some bishops are saying that the Book of Discipline already provides an exit path for congregations desiring to leave, and that no further provisions for exit are needed. (For Discipline nerds, they are referring to ¶ 2548.2, which allows an annual conference to instruct local church trustees to deed church property to an “evangelical denomination under an allocation, exchange of property, or comity agreement.”)
Some point to the example of two large churches in Mississippi and one in Eastern Pennsylvania that were able to negotiate withdrawal for the payment of one year’s apportionments. What all three churches had in common was a high level of debt, which the annual conference was unable financially to assume. The annual conference then had basically no choice but to allow the congregations to leave with their buildings.
Recent events have shown that such a “gracious exit” will not be allowed for most churches seeking to leave the denomination under current rules, particularly if they are a typical, average-sized congregation.
First United Methodist Church of Louisville, Mississippi, voted in March by a margin of 175-6 to leave the denomination. In May, the conference announced it was going to keep the church buildings and appoint a new pastor to preserve a congregation in Louisville. As a result, the congregation has sued the conference and won a temporary restraining order to keep doing ministry in the building. The dispute will now go through a court process to determine whether the congregation can keep its building while departing from the denomination. The church’s pastor, the Rev. Mike Childs, has a long record of effective service and was a current General Conference delegate. He has now surrendered his credentials. The fate of the Bevil Hills UM Church, yoked with Louisville First, has not yet been determined. That congregation’s 22 members voted unanimously to leave the denomination.
In an even more egregious example, Oakland United Methodist Church inCharles Town, West Virginia, voted in April by a margin of 81-16 to begin the process to leave the denomination. They sought negotiations with the Baltimore-Washington Conference of which they are a part. Instead, a district superintendent showed up unannounced in worship on Easter Sunday and demanded to read a letter from the bishop to the congregation rebuking them for their desire to leave, according to the co-pastor, the Rev. JoAnne Alexander. (Alexander is married to the Rev. Mike Tice and they serve the church as pastors together, although Tice was the only one appointed to the church.) One can only imagine the impact such a letter had on the celebration of Christ’s resurrection and the many visitors in the congregation who knew nothing of what was going on. So much for pastoral sensitivity on the part of the annual conference.
According to Alexander, the week after Easter, all of the church council members received a letter from the conference chancellor (lawyer) reminding them that the church property is held in trust for The United Methodist Church, that congregations are not free to leave, and that the annual conference “stands ready to take all appropriate steps, including the prosecution of civil judicial proceedings, to ensure that those principles are honored by all local church officers.” (Perspective was provided a copy of the letter.) The members of the church council read this letter to be a threat to sue them individually for their action to allow the congregation to begin a process to leave the denomination.
In early May, the bishop called Tice in for a meeting, stating that if he did not show up at the assigned time, he would be removed as pastor. Alexander told Perspective that Tice was accompanied by another elder who was not allowed to speak in the meeting. During the meeting Tice was summarily removed from his appointment and forbidden from setting foot inside the church building without the district superintendent being present. (Tice had retired earlier this year and hoped to serve in retirement until after the 2019 General Conference determined the future direction of the church.)
Oakland United Methodist Church, Charles Town, WV
By the time that Tice had driven back to his home, the locks on the church were already being changed by the conference, and all leaders and members of the church were locked out of the building. According to Alexander, no one was allowed to remove any personal property. They were informed that the district superintendent would decide what items they were allowed to take out of the church, including many items made by church members for use in the church and the pastor’s personal property. Previously scheduled ministry events, including a regular Friday evening community dinner, had to be canceled.
Tice and Alexander (also an ordained elder), have served in ministry at the Oakland UM Church for 32 years. When Alexander began at the church, it had an attendance of 17. Before the recent conflict, attendance had risen to 250. However, in the last several years a number of families had left the church in response to the Frank Schaefer trial (where a United Methodist clergyperson was defrocked for performing a same-sex wedding, but then reinstated on appeal) and the fallout from the 2016 General Conference. The church building had been literally built by the parishioners themselves, but has now been taken from them.
The congregation, now called Oakland Community Church, has declined to sue the conference to keep its building. They believe it is more important to move on in ministry to the community. Its first worship service was at a funeral home, and nearly 100 people attended. Fittingly, the last article posted (from December) on the church’s United Methodist website was entitled, “True Love Means Sacrifice.”
These two examples demonstrate the need for a prescribed exit path in the Book of Discipline for congregations (whether liberal or conservative) who cannot in good conscience remain in The United Methodist Church. We simply cannot trust that the bishops and annual conferences will provide a way at all, let alone a gracious way, for churches that want to leave to keep their buildings and property.
It seems fair and reasonable to require congregations to pay their fair share of unfunded pension liabilities, since these liabilities are the result of the pastors who served each church down through the years. But it is unjust and unacceptable for annual conferences to hold congregations hostage to their buildings in order to force them to compromise their consciences.
That approach is morally questionable and it will only precipitate numerous legal conflicts that burn up millions of dollars that should be going toward the mission of the church. These heavy-handed tactics are symptomatic of a heart at war, not a heart of peace. And they demonstrate church leaders saying one thing, but doing another. It’s a good way to tear down what little trust remains in a denomination about to come apart at the seams.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.
