by Steve | Nov 3, 2021 | Uncategorized
Map of United Methodist Jurisdictions and Annual Conferences in the United States of America. Photo Courtesy of the United Methodist News Service.
By Thomas Lambrecht –
A few weeks ago, the Rev. Adam Hamilton was interviewed by UM News Service on his thoughts about the Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation. He said, “Generally, the idea of allowing people to graciously exit with their buildings, I think almost everybody has agreed to that.” Hamilton notes this is a significant change from five years ago, when very few were in favor of allowing denominational exit. While he notes that anything can happen at General Conference, he believes this idea would have broad support.
At the same time, Hamilton reports that some have raised “questions” about certain provisions of the Protocol. Some question the feasibility of allocating $25 million to the new proposed Global Methodist Church. Others question the ability of an annual conference to vote to withdraw from the UM Church or would like to see the percentage of that vote raised from 57 percent to two-thirds. In this article, I would like to address the thinking behind these particular provisions.
Annual Conference Departure
The Protocol provides that an annual conference may vote to withdraw from the UM Church and align with another Methodist denomination formed under the Protocol based on a vote of 57 percent in favor. This was the very last provision of the Protocol that was agreed upon, and failure to agree on this proposal would have scuttled the whole deal. The 57 percent was a compromise between progressives and centrists, who wanted a two-thirds vote, and traditionalists, who wanted a simple majority.
The idea of an annual conference decision on alignment actually came from the Commission on a Way Forward. The Connectional Conference Plan provided for two conferences within United Methodism, one traditionalist and one progressive/centrist. Annual conferences could vote to align with one or the other, carrying all their local churches with them into that alignment (unless the local church disagreed and took steps to align differently).
This same model was used in the Indianapolis Plan and later in the Protocol, so it is an idea that was broadly accepted across the ideological spectrum.
The reason for having an annual conference vote is to respond to the plea the Commission received from many clergy: “Don’t make my local church vote.” If the annual conference votes on alignment and the local church agrees with the annual conference decision, there would be no need for the local church to vote, thus avoiding the potential divisiveness a local vote might precipitate. Those who do not want annual conferences to be able to withdraw would be mandating a vote by all local churches in that annual conference that wanted to withdraw. Allowing an annual conference to withdraw would minimize the number of congregational votes in that annual conference.
Part of the “grace” alluded to in the name of the Protocol is the idea that all groups want any denominations that emerge under the Protocol, as well as the post-separation United Methodist Church, to be as strong and vibrant as possible, set up to succeed, rather than fail. Not allowing an annual conference to withdraw could cause that annual conference to become non-viable as it remains in the post-seperation UM Church. If a significant percentage of an annual conference’s congregations withdraw to join a new denomination, it would leave that annual conference unable to continue functioning, and it would probably be folded into a nearby annual conference, losing its identity.
For instance, the Northwest Texas Annual Conference recently voted by about an 80 percent margin to endorse the Protocol and indicate that it would vote to withdraw and join the Global Methodist Church if the Protocol passed General Conference. If the NWTX Conference were not allowed to withdraw, it could lose more than half its congregations (perhaps as many as 80 percent) to the GM Church. The congregations that would be left would almost certainly not be able to maintain a viable annual conference in the UM Church. The remaining congregations would undoubtedly be reassigned to a nearby annual conference, defeating the whole purpose of not allowing an annual conference to withdraw. Such an outcome helps neither the UM Church nor the GM Church and does not create strong and viable entities to continue ministry and mission in a geographical area.
The question of what percentage vote would be required for an annual conference to withdraw is a sticky one. Those who argue for a two-thirds majority vote say that any major decision by a unit of the church ought to be made by a supermajority vote. Anything less than a supermajority could mean that a church moves forward without the full support of its members, resulting in an adverse outcome.
On the other hand, those arguing for a simple majority vote say that we live in a democratic society, where people are used to accepting the will of the majority. For a small, one-third minority of the church to block the will of the majority could cause major disruption in the church and resentment by those in the majority. (This happened to a large congregation in Houston whose recent attempt to leave the Presbyterian Church fell just a few votes short of the required two-thirds.)
That is why the compromise of 57 percent seems to fit the bill. It is greater than a simple majority, assuring that the decision by an annual conference to withdraw has solid support in the conference. Yet it is not so high as to allow a small minority to block the will of the strong majority. As with many of the terms of the Protocol, this compromise holds in delicate balance competing values. Any attempt to move the percentage one way or the other would upset the delicate balance and potentially damage the entire deal worked out by the various groups.
Some traditionalists perceive attempts to change the percentage or to disallow annual conference withdrawal as an attempt to coerce churches to stay in the UM Church. Any church should be made up of a coalition of the willing, not a coalition of the coerced. One value underlying the Protocol was to provide the fairest and most straightforward way for local churches and annual and central conferences to align with those with whom they desire to identify. Closing the door on some of those pathways undermines the basic values espoused by the Protocol.
Attempts to change the provision allowing annual conferences to withdraw also smacks of a double standard. In the aftermath of the 2019 General Conference, 28 U.S. annual conferences voted not to abide by the recent changes in the Book of Discipline. Annual conferences in the Western Jurisdiction and Denmark began exploring the option of disaffiliating from the UM Church. But now that it is traditionalist annual conferences that would be withdrawing, some want to make it harder or even impossible for that to happen. A good rule of thumb is to treat others as one would like to be treated. If the ability of an annual conference to withdraw from a church that it can no longer support is fair for some, it is right for others with a different perspective.
What about the money?
The other issue raised is whether in Hamilton’s words “the resources are there” for the UM Church to pay out the $25 million to the new denomination. “Does this make sense today like it did before? And for some people it didn’t make sense even then.”
Some consider the $25 million as a subsidy by the UM Church to the new denomination. But the participants in the Protocol saw it as a fair way to allocate the resources that all United Methodists – including traditionalists – have contributed to the church over the past 200-plus years. The amount was not calculated based on the current income of the UM Church, but on unrestricted liquid assets available at the end of 2018, which amounted to $120 million. Of that amount, one-third ($40 million) was to go to the new denominations formed under the Protocol. Traditionalists agreed to contribute one-third of their share ($13 million) to maintain the ethnic ministries and Africa University at their current levels. That left $25 million for the traditionalist denomination and $2 million for a potential progressive denomination.
To take away the $25 million is to say that traditionalists have contributed nothing to the church over the decades. Whereas, in fact, traditionalists have been strong supporters of the mission of the church and contributed to the assets that the church has built up over the years. Allocating $25 million is only a recognition of that fact. It would also allow the new denomination to support ministry in Africa, the Philippines, and Eastern Europe where parts of the church indicate their intent to join the GM Church.
To be fair, if the unrestricted liquid reserves of the UM Church have been significantly reduced by the end of 2021, that is something worth reexamining. On the other hand, perhaps the reserves have increased, and the amount should be greater than $25 million. All traditionalists seek is to be treated fairly and with respect.
In the final analysis, these questions are about grace and preserving the possibility of future reconciliation – perhaps not reunion, but at least the possibility of cooperating together in ministries of mutual interest. We can release and bless one another as we go our separate ways. Or we can fight for every last nickel we think we are owed, creating further animosity between different parts of the Body of Christ. A return to conflict was what the Protocol was designed to avoid. We have the chance to show the world a different, more Christlike way to resolve our differences and bring honor to the name of Christ.
by Steve | Aug 6, 2021 | July/August 2021, Magazine, Magazine Articles, Uncategorized
By B.J. Funk –
“It is always just possible that Jesus Christ meant what he said when he told us to seek the secret place and to close the door,” C.S. Lewis observed in God in the Dock.
In the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “And when you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they will be seen by people. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But as for you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6, NASB).
When my two sons were little boys, I gave them each a drawer at a table in their room. That drawer was theirs only. I called it their Special/Secret Drawer. They were young – ages five and three – and it gave them joy to have their own special place. Their own crayons, their own stamp collection, etc. I don’t know why it worked so well, but it did.
At that same time, I had my own Special/Secret Drawer in our guest bedroom. Into that drawer, I stuffed page after page of my hurtful marriage. I wrote a lot about my pain, my broken heart, and also a lot about what God was teaching me. I read books that I knew would give me spiritual strength.
The book I clung to was Dennis Bennett’s book, Nine O’Clock in the Morning. Bennett, an Episcopal priest, found himself in a spiritual wilderness. Along with his wife, Rita, he shared the fire that led to a longed-for renewal. This now classic story tells how the Charismatic Movement began and swept into churches across America.
I was in a spiritual wilderness. I could not sleep. I lost weight rapidly. I cried to the Lord for help.
The title of Bennett’s book is taken from a New Testament episode and the words of the Apostle Peter right after the Holy Spirit descended on the small group gathered and waiting for the Lord’s guidance. When they came into the streets, they were swaying and stumbling and so they were accused of being drunk. Actually, they were woozy with the power of the Spirit. Peter corrected them.
“These men are not drunk, as you suppose,” he said. “It’s only nine o’clock in the morning” (Acts 2:15). Then Peter explained that the prophet Joel had prophesied this very thing, that God said through Joel that he would, in the last days, pour out his Spirit on all people. That’s when the church was born, and three thousand people were added to their roll on that very day.
I began meeting the Lord each morning before the boys got up. There, he bathed me in love. I learned that, as C.S. Lewis said, Jesus implores us to pull away and go to God in secret. He would reward us.
That marriage lasted five more years before my husband divorced the boys and me. I include the boys in that statement because, by his choice, their dad has not seen them in thirty years.
But that’s not really the point of this article. I believe that my special times with my Lord in those early morning hours were the real reason I didn’t hit bottom five years later. The Holy Spirit had become real to me. And in all of the feelings of loneliness and betrayal that would come to me again, I knew I would make it. I threw away everything in that drawer.
In many churches, the Holy Spirit is ignored or feared. Yet when we ask him to baptize us with his Spirit, we find a life with Jesus that we had not known before. And by the way, he has never required me to do anything that would embarrass me. He is a Gentleman. My walk with him is between a Gentleman and a Lady.
Oswald Chambers says, “The Holy Spirit makes real in me all that Jesus did for me.” The United Methodist Church needs the power of the Holy Spirit to invade our lives with depth, joy, and power. And we would all welcome a 3,000 member surge. Dear Lord, let it be.
B.J. Funk is Good News’ long-time devotional columnist and author of It’s A Good Day for Grace.
by Steve | Jul 13, 2021 | In the News, Uncategorized
In an extremely rare move, the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church has seized the assets of Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church in Marietta amid a fight over who should be its senior pastor.
The conference announced its stunning decision in a statement released Monday and said it was “acting out of love for the church and its mission” and to “preserve the legacy of the Mt. Bethel church and its longstanding history of mission and ministry.”
The conference’s board of trustees will assume management of the church. Mt. Bethel, located at 4385 Lower Roswell Road in Marietta, has one of the largest congregations in the conference.
Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson and the eight district superintendents “have unanimously determined that ‘exigent circumstances’ have threatened the continued vitality and mission of Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church,” according to the statement. “Given this determination, all assets of the local church have transferred immediately to the conference’s board of trustees of the North Georgia Conference.”
To read entire Atlanta Journal-Constitution story, click HERE.
by Steve | Apr 30, 2021 | Magazine Articles, Uncategorized
Mt. Bethel
By Rob Renfroe —
A number of our larger, most healthy churches have recently been told that their senior pastor is being moved to another appointment, without consultation with the pastor or the congregation. One is Mt. Bethel in the North Georgia Annual Conference. It’s one of the ten largest churches in the denomination. The others are in the Greater New Jersey and the California-Pacific Annual Conferences.
Thus, they are in different regions of the country. One, Mt. Bethel, is predominantly white. The other four, one in New Jersey and three in California, are Korean. What do they have in common? They are all strongly traditional in their beliefs. They are all under the authority of a centrist to progressive bishop.
Something else they have in common is that none of these churches appreciate how they have been treated in the removal of their senior pastor. All United Methodist pastors serve at the pleasure of their bishop. All United Methodists churches know their bishop has the right to appoint whoever he or she believes is best for their church. But every church and every pastor, unless there is some moral failure, expects to be treated with common courtesy and respect in the process.
Some have condemned Mt. Bethel’s unwillingness to receive a new pastor. The expected liberal critics have blasted the church for wanting to be treated differently than other churches because of its size. But these critics are missing the point. Neither the pastor nor the church’s SPRC were consulted before the appointment was announced as required in The Book of Discipline. And though larger churches are not special or above the rules because of their size, replacing their senior pastor in a way that screams, “I am the bishop and I know what’s best for you,” is not smart, respectful, or helpful to the person who is taking over the removed pastor’s position.
The senior pastor at the church I serve announced his retirement this January. The Woodlands United Methodist Church, just north of Houston, is also one of the denomination’s largest. The process of appointing his successor began three years ago. The bishop and our SPRC worked closely and amicably together with the same goals – finding the right person for the position and conducting the process in a way that guaranteed the new pastor would be well-received by the congregation and begin his or her ministry with the greatest chance of success. Replacing the pastor of a large church does not require three years. But to be effective and healthy for the church, the process – well, first it must be a process, not a pronouncement from on high – needs to be open and collaborative.
A church does not need to be the size of The Woodlands or Mt. Bethel to know when its lay leadership and its congregation are being disrespected. And it is wise to be aware that if you appoint someone to be the senior pastor of a church without proper consultation, you are likely doing harm to that congregation.
Why three different bishops would show such little regard for thriving churches and their ministries is indeed puzzling. The five churches involved have either stated or have given reason to believe they will leave the Post-Separation United Methodist Church when the Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation is passed. It is easy to believe, possibly wrongly, that these disruptive appointments are punitive in nature – a way of insuring that these churches will not leave as whole and as healthy as they might have.
It’s also natural to wonder if removing beloved senior pastors is a strategic play for financial gain. If a bishop can make things so difficult for a traditional church that it decides to leave before the Protocol is passed, it will need to pay a high financial price for disaffiliation. In the case of Mt. Bethel it could be several millions of dollars. It makes sense. If a church leaves after the Protocol, it takes its property and its assets without any payment to the Post-Separation UM Church.
So, what does a bishop have to lose if she or he so offends a traditional congregation that it decides to leave early? It was departing anyway. Why not fill dwindling annual conference coffers with a costly disaffiliation exit fee? In fact, it might be considered a shrewd play. Turn up the heat until the church feels it must depart – either leaving its buildings and property behind or paying dearly for the privilege of taking what it has sacrificed to build over the decades.
Another possibility is that a bishop, by disrespecting a congregation, could hope to run off all of its strongly traditional members. Make them so upset that they decide to leave and form a new church. Those remaining would have decided they could live with such a bishop and the UM denomination he or she represents. They would also retain the rights to the property. Perhaps those who stay would vote to remain in the post-separation UM Church, the denomination that bishop represents, and bring their buildings and their assets with them.
It’s hard to believe that any representative of Christ, particularly bishops of The United Methodist Church, would be cynical and Machiavellian enough to play these games. Especially one who told the Washington Post after the 2019 General Conference, “If the Methodist church has to get leaner and nicer, I’m all for it. I’m tired of the meanness. I’m tired of the pettiness. I’m tired of the fighting to win at all costs.”
And one would think that, in this time when we have all become aware of how Asian Americans are often the victims of prejudice and mistreatment, bishops would be sensitive to the optics of how they treat predominantly Asian congregations and clergy.
But three different Annual Conferences. Three different centrist to progressive bishops. Five different traditional churches. One has to wonder what’s behind it. And where it will go next.
Rob Renfroe is a United Methodist clergyperson and the president and publisher of Good News.
by Steve | Jul 1, 2019 | Uncategorized
By Kenneth Tanner
The hands that crafted humanity from the dust are the hands that grasp Mary’s finger as she looks on her infant God with awe.
The divine finger that etched the commandment concerning adultery into the stone on Sinai is the human finger that drew in the sand as the frenzied crowd picked up stones to slay the adulteress.
The hand that wrote on the palace wall that Belshazzar, the pagan king, had been weighed in the balance and found wanting is the hand that was nailed to the tree and bled for the failures and imbalances of every human tribe.
The fingers that set the moons and stars in the cosmos like a master jeweler, smear mud on the eyes of the blind so that they might once again behold the light of heaven.
And even as the cosmos is held in his hands – suspended on his charity, all things set in motion by his energies – his sacred hands are contained and constrained for nine months within the womb of the virgin.
The hands that deliver Israel from slavery in Egypt are the hands that offer the paschal cup that promises and will in time deliver the renewal of all things.
He opens his sovereign hands and feeds all the woodland, pasture, and desert creatures and his calloused carpenter’s hands take, and bless, and break the bread that grants life without end, the bread of Christ.
As the right hand of the Father Jesus touches lepers, dines with tax collectors, offers living water to the woman whose people are the enemy of his people, and washes the feet of his followers – cleansing everyone he meets, because the Son only ever does what he sees his Father doing – and is the risen, transfigured right hand that rests on the shoulder of John in the apostle’s great vision of the world that is coming to this world, and says to his beloved friend in a still small voice: “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one. I died, but look – I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.”
Kenneth Tanner is pastor of Church of the Holy Redeemer in Rochester Hills, Michigan. His writing has appeared in Books & Culture, The Huffington Post, Sojourners, National Review, and Christianity Today. This article appeared in the July/August 2019 issue of Good News. Artwork is a segment of Michelangelo’s “Hand of God: The Creation of Adam” found in the Sistine Chapel. Public Domain.
by Steve | May 29, 2019 | Uncategorized
Shepherd to the fringes: John “Bullfrog” Smith (1942-2019)
By Steve Beard
March/April 2019
“Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town’s garbage heap; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek … at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died. And that is what He died for. And that is what He died about. That is where churchmen ought to be and what churchmen ought to be about.”– The Rev. George Macleod, Church of Scotland clergyman and one of the founders of the Iona Community (1895-1991).
More than 20 years ago, I was sitting across the table in a Chinese restaurant in Nicholasville, Kentucky, when John Smith recited Macleod’s sentiments with righteous authority and a piercing gaze to describe part of the inspiration of the calling on his life. At that time, Smith, a well-known media commentator and evangelist to those on the cultural fringe in Australia, was doing doctoral work in missiology at Asbury Theological Seminary.
As a well-scrubbed son of a Methodist minister and a brand new Bible school graduate in the late 1960s, Smith recalls driving past a “bunch of menacing-looking outlaw bikers parked by the side of the road. Oddly, I felt a surge of compassion for these guys who no one really wanted to know. I couldn’t see the local minister making much headway with people like that,” he wrote in his autobiography, On the Side of the Angels.
Smith began to pray that “God would raise up someone able to get alongside such outsiders and show them something of the love of Christ.” At that moment, he sensed the corresponding answer: “Why don’t you answer your own prayer.” Initially, he doubted the call – but eventually he became the president of God’s Squad Motorcycle Club and an authentic ambassador of Christ to the marginalized, rejected, and forsaken.
John Smith died on March 6, 2019, after a long battle with cancer. He was 76 years old. Hundreds of bikers were in attendance at Smith’s funeral in Ocean Grove, a coastal community in the southeast of Australia, to pay their respects – including those from the Hell’s Angels, Gypsy Jokers, Bandidos, Coffin Cheaters, and Immortals.
Sean Stillman, president of God’s Squad UK chapter and author of God’s Biker: Motorcycles and Misfits,described Smith at the funeral as an “academic, a pastor, a preacher, a prophetic voice, an irritant to a comfortable church, an advocate for justice, the poor, the marginalized, and the arts.” More significantly, Stillman said, was his role as husband to Glena, Smith’s wife, and father to his three children and 17 grandchildren.
With a gregarious personality and an encyclopedic knowledge of poetry, pop culture, ecology, philosophy, and theology, Smith garnered attention and stirred controversy through his Christian message, advocacy for social justice, and roaring motorcycles. His appeal was infectious. Currently, there are God’s Squad members in 16 nations around the globe.
Stillman reported on Smith’s ability to connect with men and women “whether it be in a smoky clubhouse bar, backstage at a rock ‘n roll gig, or in the corridors of political power, a chapel pulpit, a street corner talking to a complete stranger, sitting amid Indigenous communities, engaging in academic dialogue, or crying in the pouring rain at a graveside with a grieving family.”
Smith spoke at rock festivals, biker rallies, government hearings, secondary schools, and before the United Nations Human Rights Commission. But his real love was talking one on one with someone who felt alienated from God and the church.
“For Smithy, the road was the place of discipleship and mission, and like John Wesley, one of his mission inspirations, the world very much became his parish,” said Stillman. “It was where you worked out what it meant to be a follower of his hero, Jesus of Nazareth. The road would take you to the marginalized. He taught us that the Gospel still ought to be good news for the poor and uncomfortable news for the powerful.”
Smith was a tireless advocate for human rights and indigenous peoples. Aunty Jean Phillips, an Aboriginal Christian leader from Queensland, testified at the funeral to Smith’s friendship with the Aboriginal community and recalled his “real heart for justice.”
An email from U2 frontman Bono was even read at the funeral. “To John the Bible was an incendiary tract – not some handbook on religion,” wrote Bono. “It was not a sop for mankind’s fear of death – it was an epic poem about life. It spoke about culture, about politics, about justice.” U2 first became acquainted with Smith while touring through Australia in 1984 during the “Unforgettable Fire” tour.
Interestingly enough, the last time I saw John and his wife Glena was after a U2 concert many years ago in Chicago on Bono’s birthday during the Vertigo tour. John asked if my friend, Father Kenneth Tanner, and I could give them a lift across town after the show. They sat in the back and talked about loving the concert but being too tired to attend the after-gig birthday bash for Bono. We dutifully drove them up Lake Shore Drive to the Jesus People commune – silently wishing they had given us their passes to the after party.
Bono’s message at the funeral was spot-on: “When Bob Dylan sang ‘always on the other side of whatever side there was,’ he might have been singing about John, an outsider in an outsider community, an outlaw of a different kind preparing the way for the coming of a different kind of world, speaking truth to power.
“In our last meeting he spoke truth to me, gave me a hell of a hard time, thought I had gone soft and become too comfortable around the powerful. Thought I was living too well,” Bono recalled. “He was probably right. I still think about it.”
That was John Smith. He had the arched brow of an Old Testament prophet but the tenderness of Jesus welcoming the little children into his presence. He was pastoral and irritating. Not everyone can pull that off. It just seemed authentic with John Smith.
“For 35 years, I have been discovering that the world isn’t nearly as hostile to the gospel as I thought it would be. It is not nearly as frightening as we have been told it will be,” he wrote in the pages of Good News two decades ago. “Outside the walls of the church there are many people who want to be loved and would love to have a connection with someone that didn’t treat them like a prize to be won, but persons to be loved….
“I have spent most of my life rubbing shoulders with hippies, outlaw bikers, high school students, secular non-churched folk, artists, and just ordinary people,” Smith continued. “Sure, there are murderers and dangerous people out in the real world. But I have discovered that most people who look a bit scary are actually quite ordinary. At the same time, a lot of people who look very suave are actually very dangerous. The mafia doesn’t go around looking like hippies. They wear the best Italian suits. So if you are going to judge from appearances, you’ll fail from the start. As Jesus said, man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart.”
That was the heartbeat of his message to the church.
John Smith “remained passionate about the need for the message of Jesus to be faithfully proclaimed in the public sphere, but he also taught us that it should be something that should be lived,” concluded Stillman. “Putting it into practice was not an optional extra.”
Ride on, Brother John. Thanks for the arched brow and the grin. RIP.
