By Mindy Dennison
I was about 5 years old, sitting next to my mother in church when we came to the place in the service where we say the Lord’s Prayer. My mother looked down at me, a little taken aback, when I joined in the liturgy. I heard those familiar words recited so many times that they were ingrained in me already, even at such a young age.
It was still the beginning of my bringing up among “the people called Methodists.”
My memories of our little United Methodist church are many and golden. At Christmas, we hung the greens, placed “Chrismons” on the big tree, and lit the advent candles. I waved the branches on Palm Sunday, and sang “He Lives” on Easter.
I went to Sunday school. I attended VBS. I had the lead role in the Christmas musical when I was 8. In 5th grade, I attended “Sonshine” camp. In 6th grade, I was confirmed and baptized. In 7th grade, I joined the youth group and went on mission trips.
I wasn’t just told what to believe, but why we believed, and how to apply tradition, reason, and experience to the study of God’s Holy Word. As an analytical child with a need to understand the “how” and “why,” this intellectual approach to scriptural study and interpretation was important. In Methodism, science and faith were reconciled – not separate – celebrating and even validating each other.
The church nurtured my gift for music, which eventually became my vocation. I sang in the choir, I played handbells, my piano teacher was a member of our church and our recitals were held there. I first learned to read music from the hymnal. I was in 8th grade, when I sang my first Christmas Eve solo to a packed sanctuary – something I would do for the next 10 years.
As I grew up, The United Methodist Church continued to play a central role in my life.
I worked in church music programs, directing choirs and handbells to groups of all ages, from 3 to 93. I met and married my husband in a United Methodist campus ministry. I have been a United Methodist clergy spouse for 16 years. Our children have been welcomed into the nurseries, Sunday schools, VBSes, and church pews of over a dozen United Methodist congregations.
I say this to make the point: You’d be hard-pressed to find somebody more Methodist than I am. Of all the cradle Methodists in the world, I’m among the most Methodist. Just ask my Baptist friends!
But my lifelong history, my golden memories, my deep personal connections, my admiration for the Wesleyan quadrilateral, my commitment to thorough Scripture study, my fierce, long-rooted loyalty to the United Methodist denomination – all these could not withstand a truth that first crept and then crashed into my heart in recent years: the United Methodist denomination that raised me is gone. What remains of it has abandoned me and much of my traditional theology.
The decision for me and other orthodox United Methodists is not just about staying or going – it’s about accepting that we have already been cast aside by this institution and determining what we’re willing to compromise moving forward. Will it be our membership in this institution, or our traditional beliefs rooted in Scripture?
Four years ago, I not only denied this truth, I fought it. Vehemently. I considered myself a centrist, deeply loyal to the institution of The United Methodist Church. I saw the division. I heard the arguments. But I could not imagine my faith outside of the institution I championed for so long. In hindsight, I might have even made the denomination itself an idol in my life. My devotion was entirely misdirected.
The turning point for me happened with the special session of the General Conference in 2019. What I witnessed during the streaming of the proceedings, as well as on social media, from self-proclaimed progressive and centrist Methodists, was nothing short of alarming. It made me question what was really happening, and what was actually at stake for “the people called Methodist.” A strong conviction took root in my heart. This was about so much more than the presenting issue of human sexuality. Ultimately, this was a battle to determine at what altar we will serve: that of the institution, or The Kingdom of God.
There has been no shortage of complete disregard and open contempt for clearly stated teachings in our Book of Discipline. No doubt, you’ve heard accounts of this. But the ruling minority, those who serve in high positions of leadership within our denomination, do not align with the congregational majority. This is why open defiance to our social and theological doctrine has been allowed to persist, while threat and punishment take place against traditional Methodists who raise concerns. Denominational leadership is cherry-picking which parts of our doctrine and discipline it will uphold and enforce, giving preference to that which preserves the institution, not historic Christian beliefs. “Rules for thee and not for me.”
And woe to those who stand in the way. I could expound on this by sharing several disturbing stories of open hostility toward my family by progressive leaders in the United Methodist institution. I’ll just say that as a traditional clergy household, I’ve been holding my breath for the better part of three years.
But there is Good News: In the midst of great denominational turmoil, Jesus is still Lord. That has not changed, nor will it.
And for my fellow cradle Methodists, and for United Methodists everywhere who find themselves struggling with the idea of what comes next, I have this good news: meaningful and relevant ministry exists outside of the institution of The United Methodist Church. My prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness won’t mean less outside of this denomination. We are members first and foremost of Christ’s Holy Church. The ministry that happens therein MUST be for the glory and in the name of Jesus Christ. Not in the name of Methodism, not in the name of John Wesley, not in the name of intellectualism, or politics, or even social justice. It must begin and end with fierce loyalty to the one and only Truth, the one and only Light, the one and only Life. This is the way.
Our mission is the same today as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow, and our ability to carry out that mission is not determined by membership in anything but the body of Christ.
I don’t know what the future holds for me outside of The United Methodist Church. I may commit to another form of Methodist expression, perhaps through the Global Methodist Church or some other Wesleyan denomination. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. And even if we aren’t a people called United Methodist anymore, it is more important to me that we be a people called “faithful.”
Mindy Dennison is a lifelong United Methodist and, along with her husband and three kids, is active at Asbury Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mindy is a former public school teacher turned entrepreneur and small business owner. Photo: Shutterstock.
Amen! Amen! Amen!
Thanks for your powerful statement and profession of authentic Christian faith. When visiting Tulsa have been blessed to worship with your congregation.
Faithfully said!
So well put. Thank you.
I am a 20 year retired UM pastor. I agree completely with your article. For the last 10 years I have been attending 1st Nazreen Church in Rogers, AR. The Bible is believed and taught there. It is a Wesleyan denomination. I do not know what is going to happened to the UM church. I have given up on it.
Thank you for such a spirit driven statement. You are not alone in your feelings; I, too, have felt this conviction over recent years. Let us pray for those who never knew our “scripture rooted traditional beliefs”. Thank you for sharing what many of us are feeling.
On 9/15 St. Andrew’s Community UMC in Oklahoma City voted to disaffiliate from the UMC.
Thank you for sharing this message with us.
The United Methodist Church has abandoned those who have been a strong supportive backbone for many years.
Mindy, Your expressions are valued by many people in the pew but they have not been kept informed of what was happening to the UMC. Only delegates to the GC and AC, knew what was happening. Now, we are faced with splintering up. Many small UMC churches have already disaffiliated. I hope many other people read your Article. Like a tree, the Church is dying from the top down.
Thanks for your message. I have been saddened to watch the leadership of the UMC pull the denomination away from its traditional theology. I live in a small community with no place to go and looks like inertia will keep our membership attached to the UMC. I feel like a stranger in my own church now.
Beautiful and true.
Some of us came to this conclusion long ago for the same reasons. I remember when I was a Methodist pastor that I was seeing many of our best lay people–the ones who were the most thoughtful, serious, committed, and biblically literate Christians–leave the United Methodist church. I realized, finally, that they were right to do so, and I eventually joined them.
I belonged to several wonderful renewal groups, like Good News, the Confessing Movement, the IRD, and Lifewatch. God bless them all for their faithfulness and struggle.
But sadly I came to the conclusion that the polity of United Methodism–unlike that of the Southern Baptists who were able to reform–concentrated all real power at the top, in the bureaucracy and the general church, and not in the local church, laity, and congregations as Baptists do. Even many conservative Annual Conferences and General Conferences were ignored and marginalized in our system. I realized that those in power in those high places, in spite of their occasional notes of fake sympathy, had no good faith desire to change or reform.
(In some ways I feel the United Methodist Church is like the United States in microcosm: a wealthy, arrogant, ruling-class elite governing against the will and interests of the majority of its people.)
How many of us are there like this? How many will there end up being? I would like to know, I’m sure in is in the many hundreds of thousands, and will end up being in the millions.
Now I know that perhaps the same number or more have surely left Methodism and the other mainline churches because they have become completely secular in outlook, having lost any kind of Christian faith. Why go to church when you can stay home in your pajamas and consume the New York Times or other secular media, which on every serious issue believes the exact same things your local liberal protestant pastor and church does?
But so many thoughtful, orthodox Methodists like Mrs. Dennison have followed her path, and so many more will. Godspeed to her and all who do.
The Lord told me in 2015 that I would be leaving when the church split. He said the other side would need me. I am currently waiting to hear how I can serve the Global Methodist Church. There are a couple of churches going through the disaffiliation process. I will be joining them.
The United Methodist Church is a misleading doctrine that is not a biblically based canon. Open your eyes and look closer if you think it is. I have decided that I may have to leave the Methodist Church and most of the Methodist members that I personally know feel the same as I do. Sadly, they are not speaking up and their silence is being taken as acceptance of the manipulating course of the Methodist faith. As I see it, the Methodist Church is becoming weak in biblical standing and joining the world of man. Leaders of the Methodist faith are not talking about the realities of today because the congregations will not like hearing the hard truth.
The UMC will technically be a church but the widescope of ” progressive Christianity leaves the field so wide open that I am not sure it will continue to be classified as a Christian Church more as a Unitarian off shoot . But that is just my opinion
Great letter that can be applied to several “mainstream” religious groups today. Satan is the ultimate deceiver, God bless you and your family moving forward.
I have made my decision, and I will depart. The Bible is my personal Constitution. I don’t take direction from others, and especially a woke hierarchy that redefines Christian principles/ In fact, Jesus rejected the hierarchy defined by the Pharisees, I don’t see any reason to stay with the UMC, especially if they are not COMPLETELY aligned with the Word of God, aka The Bible.
As a Methodist who is struggling with the politics of our congregation, my heart needed to hear this. Thank you for conveying your thoughts so beautifully. God bless you and your family. Please keep me in your prayers as I will you.
The cross before me…the world behind me! Not the other way around.
Sadly I left Christianity and the Methodist church. I find the UMC as a whole very hypocritical sexist racist and homophobic. I have been emotionally scarred by the church. I think it almost funny that churches that are mostly white with a wealthy male power structure are the ones leaving and joining the Global Methodist Church. I feel most Christians these days fail to honestly follow the compassion and teachings of Jesus. I’m glad I’m free from hold and I can freely live my life without judgment while being a compassionate, tolerant person
I am a christian i have never been to a methodist church but i am very disturbed by what has been going on in the um church. You have made the right decision to split. The bible is the ultimate truth and we live in a time when people call good evil and evil good. Standing on gods side can be very difficult but is always the right thing to do.
God bless you
By the time the writing appears on the wall by an unseen hand.. it’s too late. I visited SMU Perkins School of Theology in the Fall of 1987. In one class a professor said there was no basis whatsoever in the belief of a Virgin birth. He stressed the correct word in Isaiah 7:14 meant young maiden. Less than 2 hours later, he led the Apostles Creed in chapel and I swear he looked down and away as he said it. This was typical of all the denomination’s seminaries and leadership.
When I mentioned Asbury in License to Preach school I was vehemently warned by the BOM chair “Do NOT. go to Asbury! If you want to get accepted in the North Arkansas Conference you do NOT go to Asbury!” He yelled this at me in front of six other prospective pastors.
Repeatedly over 24 years I was basically told ‘Do what I say’ when it didn’t follow the Book of Discipline or the scriptures. I was finally spewed out with only 18 years in full connection. Half my ministry was spent in small church charges and I never supervised a closing UMC. Practically no District Superintendents could claim the same. Absolutely no bishops.
Thank you for your enlightenment