A Primer on Local Church Assets

A Primer on Local Church Assets

By David W. Scott –

As I have tried to explain in a series of articles found on UM & Global (umglobal.org), The United Methodist Church as a whole is not a legal entity capable of owning property or financial assets. Local church property (real or personal, tangible or intangible) is owned by local legal entities and held in trust for the denomination as a whole.

This trust clause applies to the property of all parts of The United Methodist Church, but local churches are in a unique position with regard to the trust clause for several reasons: ¶2503 of the Book of Discipline explicitly names the annual conference, which generally is a legal person capable of owning property, as having authority over local church property. Several other places in the Discipline also give the annual conference explicit powers regarding the sale or transfer of local church property or its release from the trust clause. ¶2509.2 gives annual conferences the authority to bring lawsuits to enforce the trust clause. All of these provisions add up to clear enforcement of the trust clause on local churches by annual conferences.

Thus, the trust clause as applied to local church property has generally stood the test in secular courts. While in some instances departing congregations have negotiated with their annual conferences to take assets, when the trust clause has ended up in court, annual conferences have almost always won ownership of the property of departing congregations. Incidentally, that’s true not just for the UM Church, but also for the Episcopal Church and other bodies that also have a trust clause in their church law.

As cut and dried as the trust clause may appear, there are facets to keep in mind when thinking through the sorts of conflicts and potential lawsuits that might arise over ownership of local church property.

First, while most people assume that the trust clause means that the annual conference owns local church property, that’s not technically true. The annual conference has authority over local church property, and local church property reverts to the annual conference if it ceases to be owned by a local UM congregation, but the annual conference is not the legal person who owns the church property.

Who technically owns local church property depends on whether a congregation is incorporated. Most sizable congregations are incorporated as 501(c)3 organizations, but many small congregations are not. This means that for incorporated congregations, the property is owned by the local congregation as a corporate entity. For unincorporated congregations, the property is technically owned by the trustees, who as humans are legal persons. In either case, property ownership is exercised in trust for The United Methodist Church. The owner(s) of local church property can’t do whatever they want with it; they must abide by the stipulations of the Book of Discipline.

One problem here is that most bankers, investment brokers, and real estate agents are not familiar with the intricacies of the Discipline. While it would violate the Discipline, it might be possible for local leaders to work with bankers, brokers, or real estate agents unfamiliar with the trust clause to sell or otherwise dispose of local church property without annual conference consent. Such action would violate the Book of Discipline and thus expose the local church and its leaders to lawsuits from the annual conference, but it might be harder for the annual conference to recover property that was already disposed of.

Of course, the exit provision passed by General Conference 2019 and any future exit provisions passed by General Conference 2020 reduce the chances for lawsuits between local congregations and annual conferences over control of property.

Second, it’s important to remember that local church property includes more than just buildings. The trust clause applies to all other property that a local church owns, from its hymnals to its choir robes to its sound equipment to its vans to its tableware. It also applies to all financial assets owned by a local church. Thus, the question of property ownership goes beyond whether departing congregations can continue to worship in their same building. Any or all of these items could be a point of conflict between a departing church and the annual conference.

Certainly, the church building itself (and perhaps a parsonage) would likely be the biggest point of contention, since that generally represents the largest chunk of a local church’s assets. After that, who cares who keeps the Sunday school books, right? Maybe, but maybe not.

Especially when it comes to financial property, local congregations may have significant assets beyond their building over which annual conferences may want to assert their ownership. And larger churches may have a non-negligible amount of property in the form of vehicles, equipment, books, supplies, etc. Annual conferences have an incentive to assert their right to this property, even if just to give themselves better leverage in bargaining with a departing congregation.

Again, exit provisions reduce the chances for lawsuits between local congregations and annual conferences over control of buildings, equipment, and any other property. It is therefore worthwhile to keep in mind the scope of assets that could be at stake in such lawsuits.

Third, it is worth noting the variety of local church financial decision-makers established by the Discipline. This array of decision-makers increases the chances for conflict over assets within the local church itself.

The Book of Discipline outlines property-related responsibilities for the charge conference, the board of trustees, the financial secretary, the treasurer, the finance committee as a whole, and, in cases where they exist, the permanent endowment committee and the directors of the local church foundation. Moreover, in multiple-point charges, there may be both local church trustees for the property of each congregation and a board of trustees for property owned by the charge as a whole.

The authority to make all decisions regarding property, both real and personal, is vested in the charge conference. Yet, to carry out its property and financial decisions, the charge conference relies upon the work of the board of trustees, the treasurer, the finance committee, and (if they exist) the permanent endowment committee and directors of the local church foundation. These individuals have access to and oversight of the property of a church. Thus, they might be able to direct this property to another church body (either another denomination or the annual conference) in defiance of or in absence of a charge conference decision, especially since charge conferences usually meet rarely.

Again, such action would violate the Book of Discipline and ultimately lead to lawsuits, but in an instance in which there is a lot of internal conflict within a church about that church’s continued relationship with the UM Church, there is the possibility for factions within the church to use control of church property as a means to achieve their preferred outcome.

Since this type of conflict would occur within a church, an exit plan would not necessarily mitigate it. Control of property within a highly divided congregation may actually become more contentious with the existence of an exit plan. Such a plan could make local property a prize to be fought for between local “leave” and “stay” factions, with each group seeking control of the property. Nonetheless, an exit plan that sets or allows a congregation to set a relatively high standard of agreement for exiting is likely to reduce internal conflict around that decision.

David W. Scott is Director of Mission Theology at the General Board of Global Ministries. This essay orginally appeared on UM & Global (umglobal.org) and is reprinted here by permission. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott’s own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries, nor Good News. Dr. Scott is neither a lawyer nor an accountant, and thus the information in this analysis should not be interpreted as legal advice.

A Primer on Local Church Assets

Rebooting for Ministry

By Sarah Parham –

I have shared the deepest honor in walking with people as they discern their call into next steps of following the Lord for many years now, first in campus ministry, and now in missions mobilization. As Christian believers, our first and only permanent call is to God alone. However, God does have a history of giving people secondary, specific calls or assignments to a particular people and ministry. 

One thing that often gets talked about as people discern transitions, particularly in missions mobilization, is a release from current ministry contexts. When a person enters a context with a sense of calling, it is a weighty thing, and one that cannot simply be dropped on a whim. When you ask a person who has experienced this type of calling how you know when you are released, a typical response is, “you’ll know” – like you “know” when you’ve met your perfect mate, or you “know” when you’ve walked into just the right house.

Well, the truth is, they are right.

I have had the unfortunate privilege to have failed in this particular way, and as the old adage says, failure is the greatest teacher. In my last ministry setting, I had the strange situation of quitting twice. The first time I did not have the sense of release from my calling to that place, but rather a crushing dread of staying. Four years later, when I experienced a true release from that ministry setting, I knew. I did not have a release the first time. There are some lessons I learned while quitting the same ministry twice. While it isn’t easy to describe exactly what a ministerial release is, I can say with certainty some things it is not.

First, the ministerial release is not an urgent sense of retreat. The ministry I worked in was experiencing a season of pain. We were in a difficult situation, and I felt like I was being crushed. As I look back, the verse that speaks to being pressed but not crushed comes to mind. In fact, Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 is calling the church to not lose heart in ministry. It is not easy; there will be hard times. But being “pressed” is not release. These pains are like the pains of labor that bring forth new life – a new life that still needs tender nurture.

Second, a ministerial release is also not self-protective. There was a part of me that feared for my own reputation should the ministry fold. As it turns out, that isn’t God’s chief concern. Just after speaking of being pressed but not crushed, Paul speaks of “being given up to death for Jesus’ sake.” Ugh. Please note here that I’m not talking about a lack of self-care or formation that will hold us up in ministry. That is essential. God did not say he would work us to death, but rather that death is at work in us, once again bringing about life.

Third, a ministerial release is not something the minister does, but something that is done to him or her. As noted above, to hold the burden of loving the flock well is a great weight. When done well, it is held with open hands. This kind of release is not the sense of opening your hands from a tight grip. Rather, ministerial release is when God removes the weight from your open hands. The keeper of the flock is released from his or her responsibility. When I felt pressed by the ministry, my instinct was to thrust back against what was pressing me. This is not release. When it was time for me to move on, my hands were free to wave and to wipe my own tears.

Lastly, a ministerial release is a calling to go toward something new which then requires the leaving of something now. As I write this, I am preparing to attend the retirement celebration for TMS Global’s beloved Vicki and Frank Decker. They have gifted us with a living example as they consistently remind us that they are not retiring, but rather rebooting. Our new calling may not be known. Like Abraham, God calls us to follow him to what he will show us next. Our hands ever remain in the same position, open, palm facing upward, ready to receive whatever joys and burdens he gives us for the life of the world.

Sarah Parham is senior director of domestic mobilization at TMS Global (tms-global.org).   

A Primer on Local Church Assets

Squirming Through Prayer

By B.J. Funk –

I always read John Wesley’s Covenant Prayer with a questioning heart, particularly over one section. Though challenging, to say the least, most of the prayer I get. There’s just this one part that bothers me. The part that makes me want to completely ignore him are the words, “Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you. Let me be full. Let me be empty.”

Laid aside for Jesus? Be full or empty? Seriously? So, how then can I work for you, Lord? I squirm under what are to me such uncomfortable and unnecessary words.

But then I think of Jim Elliott, the young Christian who trained as a missionary. However, the spears of the natives he hoped to convert ended his life before he got started.  At the young age of 28, Jim Elliot and four missionary comrades were martyred by Auca Indians on the Curaray River in the jungles of Ecuador. These young missionaries had prepared for the mission field. They were, in John Wesley’s prayer, literally “laid aside for Jesus.” It makes no sense until we recognize that Jim Elliott prayed a similar prayer.

“God, I pray, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn up for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life but a full one like Yours, Lord Jesus.” In his diary entry for October 27, 1949, Jim wrote, “Was much encouraged to think of a life of godliness in the light of an early death.” Perhaps his most repeated quote is, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Jim Elliott was laid aside for Jesus.

Then, there is that adorable Dutch servant, Corrie ten Boom, who survived a German concentration camp and when she was freed, traveled the world telling about the goodness and grace of God inside a concentration camp. In her later years, she suffered a stroke. Her helper and friend wrote The Five Silent Years of Corrie ten Boom, reminding us that God could indeed work through the silence of this unbelievable minister of God. Without a word, she witnessed daily of God’s love and power.

Corrie ten Boom was laid aside for Jesus.

Amy Carmichael was an Irish missionary who served in India for 53 years in the first half of the 20th century. So dedicated that she never took a furlough, Amy boldly began rescuing little girls and boys from Temple prostitution. That became her life’s mission. Having found Jesus as a teenager in a Methodist boarding school and determining that she would never marry, she was empowered and eager to give up everything to serve the Lord. Always in poor health, she was bedridden for a period of years. At the end of her life during her time in bed, Carmichael’s writing and devotional ministry flourished. When asked by a young woman considering the mission field, “What is it like to be a missionary?” Amy answered, “Being a missionary is a chance to die.”

Amy was laid aside for Jesus.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is known for his faith and his resistance to Nazi dictatorship. Arrested in 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned for a year and a half, he was transferred to a concentration camp. Accused of being tied with a plot to assassinate Hitler, he was hanged in 1945 as the Nazi regime was collapsing. Twenty-one days later, Adolph Hitler committed suicide. A quote from his doctor gives a beautiful documentary on Bonhoeffer’s life.

“At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

Bonhoeffer was laid aside for Jesus.

Slowly, understanding sinks into my heart. Only God knows what he wants to get from my life, and if I am fully his, he is free to get what he wants in any way he wants. That sort of surrender is the surest way to a life of peace and joy. I’m whispering it today, but pray that I can one day say it louder and with deeper conviction. Lord Jesus, let me be laid aside for you.

A Primer on Local Church Assets

Christ on the Wrist

By Steve Beard –

Her spiritual journey began by asking about a tattoo of Jesus on the wrist of a client. Aimee Burke cuts and styles hair in a hipster neighborhood in Toronto. “She partied a lot and was partial to coke,” reported The Globe and Mail, one of the largest newspapers in Canada. “Her hookups comprised partners both male and female. She was unhappy.”

The question about the image of Christ was the spark that got Burke to visit church. “I’m pretty sure I went to the service hungover from the night before,” she recalled. But she found herself weeping during the service. “I just felt less empty,” she recalled.

Burke’s is an unconventional conversion story, especially splashed on the pages of a newspaper in a country where the numbers of those who reject faith are on the rise. According to the news magazine Maclean’s, the percentage of Canadians rejecting religion (26 percent) is nearly the number of those embracing it (30 percent), with 45 percent saying they were “somewhere in between.”

“As the Christians would say, I’ve surrendered over my life,” Burke said. “I do everything. I pray in the morning, I pray at night, I read my Bible every day. … Now I’m waiting for marriage. I’ve been sober for almost two years.”

While church attendance numbers are not on the upswing for young men and women in her age demographic, Burke still detects a spiritual hunger. “I think people are looking for something to believe in,” she said, “even if it’s just themselves.”

This observation dovetails with the message of David Zahl’s book Seculosity. While it may appear that our modern culture has abandoned ancient religion, perhaps it is more accurate to surmise that we have merely replaced one set of orthodoxies, rituals, and dogmas for another in the seemingly religious pursuit of career, parenting, technology, food, politics, and romance. 

“Bombarded with poll results about declining levels of church attendance and belief in God, we assume that more and more people are abandoning faith and making their own meaning,” writes Zahl. What these polls actually tell us, he believes, is that “confidence in the religious narratives we’ve inherited has collapsed. What they fail to report is that the marketplace in replacement religion is booming. We may be sleeping in on Sunday mornings in greater numbers, but we’ve never been more pious. Religious observance hasn’t faded apace ‘secularization’ so much as migrated….” 

Zahl observes that “we fail to recognize that what we’re actually worshipping when we obsess over food or money or politics is not the thing itself but how that thing makes us feel – if only for a moment. Our religion is that which we rely on not just for meaning or hope but enoughness.” Successful enough? Happy enough? Thin enough? Desired enough? Perhaps, good enough?

One of the cruel elements of the modern-day transfer of religiousity is the inescapable absence of grace. After all, careerism, technology, and politics don’t appear to know how to speak the language of mercy, peace, and love. 

“What makes Christianity a religion of grace, ultimately, is its essential revelation of a God who meets us in both our individual and collective sin with a love that knows no bounds, the kind of love that lays down its life for its enemies,” writes Zahl. “Christianity at its sustaining core is not a religion of good people getting better, but of real people coping with their failure to be good.” 

Aimee Burke told the newspaper that all the jokes about saying Hail Marys when she swears at work are worth it. “This is going to sound really Christian-y,” she said, “but it felt like the chains came off of me.”

Interestingly enough, that is the very imagery used in “And Can It Be?,” the beloved hymn written by Charles Wesley in 1738. “Amazing love! How Can it be/ That thou, my God, should die for me!” 

For the world outside the four walls of our churches, the good news about faith in Jesus Christ is most notably not about the trappings and shortcomings and failures of church leaders, congregations, and ecclesiastical politics. Instead, it is exclusively about the “amazing love” Wesley poetically addressed. 

“Long my imprisoned spirit lay / Fast bound in sin and nature’s night; / Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray, / I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; / My chains fell off, my heart was free; / I rose, went forth and followed Thee.”

Even wrapped in 18th century language, Wesley’s refrain reflects the heartfelt testimony of Christian believers around the globe. The image of being unshackled universally resonates. 

In an illuminating essay entitled, “I Spent Years Searching for Magic – I Found God Instead,” Dr. Tara Isabella Burton describes a time in her life of wavering between being a Wiccan and believing in nothingness, years not long ago “where the world seemed too bereft of significance to bother.” Dreamily, she longed for life to be more like a novel, a poem – something miraculous and with flamboyant pizazz. “I wanted magic. The kind of magic that transforms. Frogs into princes. Women into trees. Loneliness into poetry.”

As a student and travel-writer, Burton scrambled frantically from one exotic wanderlust destination to another, experimenting with fleeting romances, red wine, and tarot cards. “I wanted to outrun the Nothing,” she wrote for Catapult. “There was nothing I would not have sacrificed…. I hit bottom, in a thousand different ways, and got what I wanted, in a thousand more….” 

One day, she stopped running. “I found myself sitting eyes downcast in a midtown church with stained glass windows and Gothic arches and incense and magnificent voices proclaiming the glory of whatever poetry was pointing toward.” 

Burton embraced a faith that “proclaimed a sanctified world, and a redeemed one – an enchanted world, if you want to call it that – but one where meanings were concrete. It offered me not just a sense of emotional intensity, but a direction in which to channel it. It contained magic not for the sake of magic, but rather miracle for the sake of goodness. God died and came back from the dead not because magic was real, but because love was stronger than an unmagical world.”

Burton understands the difficulty of stepping out in faith to those who live in uncertainty: “God was made man, and died, and came back from the dead – which is an utterly absurd thing to say if you are not Christian, and even if you are,” she wrote. Nevertheless, there is a compelling magnetism and spiritual allure to the ancient proclamation that Christ died, Christ rose, and that Christ will come again.

“It is a story not just about the possibility of a world with meaning in it, but a story about a world where the meaning is, quite specifically, and utterly fully, love. It is a world that is predicated upon the love of a creator who has built a good world, and who – when sin afflicts it – comes into that world, in all his vulnerability, in all his mortality to save it. Love birthed the world; love redeems it; love sanctifies it. Our very humanity, our very existence, is contingent upon it.”

In a different era, it was Charles Wesley’s duty and gift as the poet to describe the Christ-centered liberation of the soul. “No condemnation now I dread; / Jesus, and all in Him is mine! / Alive in Him, my living Head, / And clothed in righteousness divine, / Bold I approach th’eternal throne, / And claim the crown, through Christ my own.”

Strangely, it all kind of connects if you saw the face of Jesus on a wrist in a hair salon. Second chances at life work like that. 

Steve Beard is the editor of Good News. 

A Primer on Local Church Assets

God’s Royal Family

Young king at the castle walls. The boy is holding a sword and is deep in thought. The future of his kingdom is depending on his decisions.

By Bob Kaylor –

I recently did one of those Ancestry DNA tests – you know, that test where you send in a small capsule of your spit and $100 and they send you back a multi-page, full-color profile that tells you who’s been swimming in your personal gene pool. It used to be that if you had a striking physical resemblance to one of your parents or grandparents that people would say that you were their “spitting image.” Who knew that we would one day use actual spit to found out why? 

When I took the test I was hoping to find out a little more about my own background. I was adopted as an infant and knew very little about my birth family. When I was a kid, I used to fantasize that one day my birth family would discover me, and that they would somehow actually be a royal family that had misplaced me. I dreamed that they would take me back to Scotland (where I always imagined I was from) and set me up with the castle in the highlands that I had inherited, where I would spend my days ordering servants around while gnawing on huge turkey legs and guzzling goblets of chocolate milk. Such were the dreams of an exiled, secretly royal 8 year-old! 

Like many people who do these DNA tests, I was hoping to discover something interesting, if not royal, in my genetic makeup. Alas, however, while I am 28 percent Scottish, my DNA is not of the royal sort. It is the Scots-Irish DNA of poor Presbyterians who left the isles in the 1740s and hacked a life out of the frontier woods of western Pennsylvania.  

But there’s a little more to my DNA than that. A few years before I took the Ancestry test, I contacted the agency that handled my adoption. A sympathetic caseworker actually contacted my birth mother, who was still alive. While my birth mother didn’t want contact with me (I was still, apparently, a family secret), she did give the caseworker some of the story. At age 24, she had me in a Salvation Army hospital in Pittsburgh. She had become pregnant after a brief but passionate affair with a young man – not unusual. I was the result of that mistake. What was unusual, however, was that my biological father was an officer in the Army – the Salvation Army – a clergyman in the Wesleyan tradition. It took a moment, but then it hit me: I am the result of clergy misconduct. 

I had already been pastoring for a couple of decades when I found this out. The good news is that I seem to have been wired all along to be a pastor, despite taking various detours in my life like ten years as an infantry officer in the Army. I was meant to do this. Then again, I also have the wiring to be a very bad pastor. The dual nature of that reality is something that I think about all the time. It causes me to be mindful and vigilant. It keeps me connected to two other pastors in a weekly band meeting. I want to live the best part of my wiring while avoiding the worst. 

My story is not unique. In every one of us is the genetic wiring, the spiritual wiring, to be people who reflect the image of God. We were created that way. But we also have the potential to reflect a different image, a different identity, which is grounded in brokenness and sin. Understanding the image of God for which we were created, profiling our original spiritual DNA, is the key to living an abundant life that glorifies God. 

My adoptive family was of the same DNA mix as me and thus staunchly Presbyterian. And it wasn’t just a Presbyterian church we attended, it was a really Presbyterian church – like, Shiite Presbyterian. It was a church that took doctrine seriously (for which I am grateful). When I was in 9th grade, for example, I went through confirmation where we had to memorize the entire Westminster Shorter Catechism and then explain it in our own words in front of the church elders. It was such an arduous task that only one other guy in the youth group and I actually did it. The other kids were apparently into other things like “dating” and “having fun.” 

The first question of the Catechism is the one that I still remember most vividly. “Question: What is the chief end of man? Answer: To glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Then again, I think there is another reason this question and answer has stuck with me. It’s always been a reminder to me, as a child who was born out misconduct and mistake, that it’s not where you start that matters, it’s where you end. The “chief end” or the “chief purpose” of being human doesn’t depend on the circumstances of your birth, the quality of your upbringing, or whatever is in your DNA. Instead, it’s about finding your identity, your glory, in glorifying God and enjoying an eternal relationship with him. 

The catechism invites us to remember that being truly human is about being part of a story that began long before you and I were born. It’s the story that transcends all of our stories, whether they are tragic or triumphant, and gives each of our stories meaning and purpose. And when we learn that story, when we live that story, we come to know that our existence isn’t a mistake. Indeed, we are shocked to learn that all of us – every one of us – is, indeed, actually part of a royal family! 

This the foundational truth that the Bible expresses at the very beginning of the story: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and of the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27). 

In the world of the ancient Near East in which Genesis 1 was written, kings and pharaohs were often referred to as the “image” of a particular god – the human embodiment of that god, who ruled in the place of that god. The “image” was invested in the king alone. Often there was a temple with the king’s image in it in the form of a statue, a concrete symbol of the god’s reign through the king. 

In that context, Genesis 1 is a bold statement declaring that there is one Creator God whose image is invested not in a singular king, but in all of humanity – both male and female – who are to be concrete, embodied symbols and stewards of God’s reign on the earth. It’s not a matter of birth or one’s family tree, it’s a gift of the creator. Humans were made to be royalty. 

Psalm 8 reflects this reality. “You have made [human beings] a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor” (v. 5). John Wesley called this the “political” image of God in humanity – a vocation to be “the governor of this lower world” (his sermon, The New Birth).

But while there is a “political” nature to the image of God, there is also a “moral” image, which Wesley found to be even more compelling. It’s the image of “righteousness and true holiness,” the moral characteristics of the Creator God himself. Humans were not merely to reign; they were to reign as a reflection of God’s character and glory. They were, in other words, to bear a family resemblance to God. One of the explanations for the origins of the term “spitting image” is that it’s a mashup of saying “spirit and image” together quickly. Spirit ‘n image: spitting image. We were made to be spitting images of God.   

But it’s a quick trip from the glory and spitting image of Genesis 1 and 2 on to the unraveling of God’s image in Genesis 3. The snake showed up and convinced the archetypical humans that they could be more than the image of God they were created to be – that they could be gods themselves. This was a lie, of course, but they were hooked. They grasped at determining the knowledge of good and evil for themselves and, instantly, they were dethroned. Instead of ruling God’s creation as kings and queens in a fellowship of equals, they instead began comparing themselves and sought to rule over one another. Instead of having dominion over the earth, they are ruled by the fallen creation’s resistance to their efforts. Instead of stewarding God’s kingdom, they begin to build their own. Instead of living a royal life in the castle garden God had created for them, they found themselves to be spiritual paupers, hungry exiles in a strange land hacking their existence out of the hostile and unforgiving soil.  

This is the story that the Old Testament tells. It is a story in which the image of God in humanity fades quickly, replaced by a constant battle with idolatry. This is the image of God turned inward. It’s the story of mistaken identity; of missing the mark of what God intended for us, which is the very definition of sin. Sin clouds our ability to know who we really are; it strips us of our royalty; it enslaves us to being ruled by things that make good servants but terrible masters – things like money, sex, power. It puts us at war with our bodies; it makes our eyes wander, our hearing selective, and our speech self-serving. It binds us to our past mistakes. In fact, sin convinces us that we are a mistake. 

This is the situation in which we find ourselves: We all have the royal image of God and royal vocation of God in our DNA – and we all have the potential to be really bad at it. As Wesley put it more succinctly: We were created able to stand, but liable to fall. 

The image of God fades in the biblical narrative after the opening chapters of Genesis. But then, powerfully and unexpectedly in the New Testament, the image reappears. This time, however, it is not just a human being made in the image of God, it is a human being who is the image of God. He is the crystal-clear image that replaces and reboots the image that was marred in Adam and distorted in us. The New Testament writers announce his arrival: “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation,” says Paul in Colossians 1. “For in him all things were created: things visible and invisible … He is before all things and in him all things hold together.” “For us and for our salvation,” says the Creed, “he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.” The perfect image of God was embedded from the beginning of creation – the model for humanity – revealed at the right time in the person of Jesus Christ. 

As the perfect image of God, Christ completes the original royal vocation of humanity and, at the same time, reveals what true humanity, what real royalty looks like. In the great hymn in Philippians 2, Paul proclaims that Jesus did not consider that royal image of God something to be grasped or exploited but humbled himself and took the form of an obedient servant, walking the way of perfect submission all the way to the pain of the cross. He shows humanity who they were intended to be – servant kings and queens – and then, through the cross and resurrection, frees them from the slavery of sin and death so that they can live that royal vocation. He offers that new life, a new birth, a new name, a new identity, a royal vocation, a place in the family, a community of love. When we receive him, we discover the family from which we have long been estranged. We receive a new birth story. “To all who received him, who believed on his name,” says John, “he gave power to become children of God who were born, not of blood, or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).

In other words, when we receive him, we share a common new birth no matter how we came into the world, no matter what the DNA test says about us. Our lives become restarted, renewed, and rewired. The long-lost exiles become part of his royal family again. We were created by him, through him, and for him. As Paul puts it in Romans 8:29, we were “predestined to be conformed to the image of [God’s] Son.” This is true humanity. This is our true identity. This is the goal, the chief end for which Christ has come – that we might glorify God as his royal created image once again. To put it another way, Jesus became like us so that we might become like him.

This is the foundational aim of Methodism, the “one thing needful” according to Wesley. Renewal in the image of God is the goal of sanctification, the means of grace, the aim of preaching, the work of the Spirit. We have a theology of new birth that doesn’t leave us as infants but invites us to grow up and claim the identity for which God has made us. Our theology is not so much about where we begin as where we end as the result of God’s grace and the work of the Spirit. We are all adopted children growing up together in that grace. We band together to remind one another who we are and to name the false identities we take on, the sins that would bind us, and spur one another on to perfection in Christ. 

And we go forth to carry out our royal vocation. Think of the Great Commission, for example, and notice how much it parallels the vocation God gave humanity in Genesis 1: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” says Jesus – royal authority delegated from King Jesus to his royal representatives. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” – proclaim new birth, leading to a new family, in the model of God’s own family, the Trinity. “And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” – give them a new vocation. “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” – a Christ-empowered movement, leading toward a new creation! 

One of Ancestry’s slogans is, “Everyone has a fascinating story. We’ll help you find yours.” Well, our goal is to help everyone find themselves in the story. My story doesn’t begin in a Salvation Army hospital in Pittsburgh. It began at creation. So does yours. And this is the good news we need to share with the world: You are not a mistake; you were made to be the spitting image of God! You are not your title, your career, your degrees, your desires, your preferences, your sins, your past, or your present. Friends, you are royalty. Your destiny has always been to be a part of the royal family of God. This is the good news we proclaim to all those who wrestle with their identity, who think they are a mistake: the king has been looking for you, lost though you may have been, to give you a royal inheritance of abundant, eternal life. 

It’s the kind of news that calls for a celebration. Turkey legs and chocolate milk for everyone! Better yet, how about bread and wine? That’s the sort of feast prepared for real royalty by the world’s true king.

Bob Kaylor is the pastor of Tri-Lakes United Methodist Church in Monument, Colorado. This article is adapted from his address to the Wesleyan Covenant Association gathering in Tulsa in November.

A Primer on Local Church Assets

God is Birthing a New Methodist Movement

The Rev. Keith Boyette, president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, speaking at the WCA’s Global Gathering. Photo: Mark Moore.

By Keith Boyette –

What follows is an adaptation of the address the Rev. Keith Boyette, president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, delivered at the WCA’s Global Gathering held at Asbury United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday, November 9, 2019.

I love the church. We are the body of Christ – poured out in the midst of a broken and troubled world to offer God’s love, his salvation, and his transforming grace to each and every person to become more and more like Jesus. In the words of Peter, we are God’s very own possession so that we can show others the goodness of God who called us out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

God desires for the church – which he called into being – to be one, to be holy, to be catholic in the sense of serving all of his creation, and to be apostolic. The Wesleyan Covenant Association fully embraces God’s call upon the church. 

Recently, the words of the prophet Isaiah have come alive for me as the prophet declared God’s message to a people who were traversing troubled times in their relationship with God. Isaiah declares God’s message: “I will lead blind Israel down a new path, guiding them along an unfamiliar way. I will brighten the darkness before them and smooth out the road ahead of them. Yes, I will indeed do these things; I will not forsake them” (Isaiah 42:16). Isaiah continues, “For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland” (43:19).

God is birthing a new Wesleyan movement – rekindling the fires that burned in the hearts of those first Methodists who let no social convention or obstacle stand in the way of their sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with anyone and everyone. There are three movements that are part of God birthing this new thing.

The first movement is extricating the new thing from the old. As it became apparent that The United Methodist Church was being rent asunder by irreconcilable differences, the Wesleyan Covenant Association has worked to ensure traditionalist churches will be able to move from the UM Church to what is next with the resources with which God has blessed them.

Therefore, the WCA supports the adoption of the Indianapolis Plan for Amicable Separation because it creates the best path for entirely separate groups of theologically aligned churches to emerge from the UM Church. It will enable every church and clergyperson to be aligned with others who hold the same core theological and ethical commitments. Every church will have an opportunity to decide about such alignment. Now, not later, is the season for leaders to prepare the local church for the future. To leaders: Educate your people. Define your mission. Draw closer to the Lord. Speak with boldness and love. Engage in the conversations that are necessary.

The second movement is developing the new. As churches and clergy move from the old to the new, what will the new thing look like? The WCA believes the UM Church will come apart, either by an agreed plan of separation enacted by the 2020 General Conference or through local churches deciding to exit the denomination due to a never-ending cycle of conflict, inaction, and dysfunction. We are preparing for the launch of a new Methodist church in the aftermath of GC2020. We see the WCA as the bridge to this new church. We will provide a framework for churches and clergy to move to an interim expression of this church under the auspices of the WCA.

The November WCA assembly in Tulsa voted overwhelming to commend a draft of the WCA’s “Book of Doctrines and Discipline.” This is a working document for local churches, laity, and clergy who long for a warm-hearted, mission driven expression of Wesleyan Christianity. The WCA will continue to refine this document between now and the holding of a convening conference for a new church. Once again, it is a work in progress. Our goal is to help a convening conference to move forward deliberately and expeditiously in creating a healthy and vibrant church.

We envision a leaner, more nimble church which is not top heavy with an institutional bureaucracy that constrains rather than liberates us to share the Good News. This new denomination will exist to serve local congregations – not for local congregations to serve it. There will be no trust clause on the property of churches. We want our movement to be a coalition of the willing, not the constrained.

The structure of this new church will define broad parameters for how local churches will be in connection with one another, but it will grant local churches maximum flexibility to organize for and advance the ministry to which God has called them. As a consequence, more of the tithes and offerings received by local churches will remain with them so they can deploy their resources for reaching the lost, feeding the hungry, and making disciples.

This church will be served by a term-limited episcopacy, elected by – and accountable to – the whole church, not just a college of like-minded bishops. We intend for these episcopal leaders to be apostolic, to promote and defend the church’s teachings, and to act with integrity as they fulfill their duties.

We envision a church which has laser-sharp focus on its mission – to introduce people to Jesus and challenge each person to become his fully devoted follower – which will be our first and foremost priority. Each church will have the freedom to determine how it fulfills this mission, and the expectation will be that every church will bear fruit – making disciples and developing them into disciple-makers.

We envision a church that finds its unity in Christ, and that is fully committed to the great confessions of our faith that we know bring well-being and wholeness to us, both individually and corporately. We truly believe a tenacious commitment to the church universal’s core teachings and beliefs will enable us to identify and deploy faithful, energetic, and effective clergy who are dedicated and excited about practicing, teaching, and proclaiming Scriptural Christianity.

Just as in the early days of the Methodist movement, we envision a church that empowers and releases laity to be leaders of the church. We affirm the priesthood of all believers! In ever more diverse and secular cultures, laity will increasingly find themselves on the frontlines of the church’s great mission to share the Good News with grace and truth. To our great embarrassment, we seem to forget laity are absolutely essential to the church. It is time for each lay person to take their place as persons whom God has called, gifted, and deployed both within and beyond the church. 

Following Christ is not a spectator sport. Jesus reminds us that the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Yet Jesus has provided workers sufficient for the task in response to our prayers. We need to get out of the way and release that which God has already called forth.

Participants at the Wesleyan Covenant Association’s Global Gathering worshipped together, heard uplifting messages, and participated in Holy Communion. Photos: Mark Moore.

The third movement involves our seeing the future that God has for this new church he is calling into being. Here are some signposts which we see pointing to where God wants to take us.

God wants every person to encounter Jesus, enter into relationship with him, and receive the salvation which he alone provides. We repent of the lack of fruit produced by a significant part of Methodist churches worldwide, especially in the United States. We cannot talk about being a world-changing movement when our branch of the body of Christ is in precipitous decline. The history of Christianity is the story of how God has used those whom the world regards as being foolish and weak to reach ever-increasing numbers of people for Jesus.

Our hearts are broken for those who do not yet know Jesus or who are indifferent to who he is and what he has done for us. We have no reason to exist apart from the mission of sharing the Gospel with our neighbors – all of them without exception – globally. The preeminent priority in a new Methodist church will be revitalizing existing churches so they become vital, vibrant missional outposts bearing fruit in God’s kingdom, and planting vital, vibrant new churches that advance the historic Christian faith in the Wesleyan tradition, especially in communities where the historic Methodist witness is not present. Some of this will occur through the multiplication of existing churches as they open new sites of their church and the expansion of online worshiping communities. This will occur as the Holy Spirit moves through individuals and local churches which reclaim their first love of Jesus, which are broken by the desperate needs which he brings to their attention, and which take initiative not limited by institutional restrictions and efforts to control and micro-manage such initiatives. As a new church, we want to empower, embrace, and unleash such initiatives. 

A strength of Methodism in its most fruitful season was ensuring followers of Jesus were connected to small groups where they could celebrate God’s activity in their lives, confess their sins to one another, seek God’s face, and discover how God was empowering them to live out the Christian faith in all of its aspects with authenticity. Unless we reclaim this imperative of discipling people in community and equipping them to be disciples who make disciples, our branch of the church universal will continue to be weak and anemic. We envision vibrant accountability groups in each and every local church. 

John Wesley declared, “The world is my parish.” That has never been truer for the people called Methodists than in our day. We are part of a global community. We are called to be a global church. Already God is doing something new, linking together parts of the Wesleyan family of churches around the globe who share the theological commitments of the Wesleyan Covenant Association. Part of our vision for the new church God is birthing is for a church that enables significant global missional partnerships. We are committed to developing and deploying effective partnerships for local churches to be in ministry with one another globally across geographic boundaries to advance the Kingdom of God and reach people of diverse cultures with the love of Jesus. Missiologists tell us that one of the largest mission fields for the church is in the United States where more than 180,000,000 are unmoored spiritually. 

Methodism has always had a focus on the poor and marginalized. We come by that naturally as that is the heart of our God, reflected in the life and ministry of Jesus. We dream of a church which effectively responds to its calling to be in ministry with the poor, marginalized, addicted, and recovering. Our pursuit of holiness must include being in community with those who have been abandoned by the systems of this world.

We are committed to addressing the challenge for local churches in reaching teens, shepherding them through the transition to adulthood, and engaging those who are navigating further education or entering the workforce so that they continue as committed Christ-followers. We desire to empower local churches to be more effective in their ministry with young people and young adults.

The Bible tells us that at the culmination of history every nation and tribe and people and language will gather around the throne of our God to worship Him. Yet God desires that his church increasingly embody that reality here and now. We envision a church which deals transparently with the sins of racism and prejudice that are still present in our lives today and which increasingly ensures that when we gather, we experience the worship God calls us to with the presence of the full diversity of the communities where we live and serve. 

We are a people in need of healing. We do not trust some of our present leaders. We are suspicious and wary of anything that has the slightest hint of what we have endured for too long. Yet this is a catalytic moment. God is doing something new. We are not doing the new thing; God is!

God is looking for a people who will be radically surrendered to his sovereignty. God is looking for a people who joyfully proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. God is looking for a people who will be desperately dependent upon the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. 

On that people God will pour out His rich blessings, and he will use them to reach all nations, races, and peoples with the Good News of Jesus Christ. When we are fully committed to that great vision, in God’s good time, he will claim us as part of his one holy catholic and apostolic church. Let us dare to believe He is bringing that reality to pass in our day. 

Keith Boyette is a United Methodist clergyperson and the president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association.