I’m finishing up a week with family at the beach and I find myself in a reflective mood as the week comes to an end and the reality of entering back into the “real world” looms in the near future. A week of rest. A week of numerous belly laughs caused by the antics of my crazy family. A week of walks along the surf. A week of delicious food. A week of reading books and chilling out under the umbrella listening to the hypnotic rhythm of the waves crashing on the beach. A week of being on no clock with no appointments or meetings to run to.

One of the books I was reading was Brene Brown’s Braving the Wilderness. A book of important encouragement as it feels like these days leading a church is like leading folks through the wilderness. What used to be so familiar has entered a place that feels new and unpredictable. That’s why when I read this section of her book, I just sat a little more comfortably in my chair. Brown was talking about being at a speaking engagement and was lamenting going to a meet and greet before the teaching later that night. That’s when her colleague gave her some wise advice as she skipped the meet and greet that afternoon:

“Tonight we will exhale and teach. Now it’s time to inhale. There is the in-breath and there is the out-breath, and it’s easy to believe that we must exhale all the time, without ever inhaling. But the inhale is absolutely essential if you want to continue to exhale.” Dr. Halifax from Brene Brown’sBraving the Wilderness

Have you ever felt that way? That all you are ever doing is exhaling. That your lungs are constantly deflated and there is nothing left to blow out. Or that you were not protecting your inhale. This week of vacation is like pausing to take the inhale of life. To pay attention to the breath. To hold balance between work and play, stressful thinking and decision making in contrast to laughter and rest. Even Jesus took moments to inhale when he would separate from the crowds and take some time to pray and be quiet.

I hope you have had some time to inhale this summer. In fact, I hope you have figured out a rhythm to your exhaling and inhaling. And when you are feeling spent or poured out that you will recognize what is happening and take some time to inhale. Go for a walk. Make time for a date night. Read a book for fun. Call a friend of family member to just catch up. Take a nap. Set aside a day with no appointments or “to do” lists. Spend some time listening for God’s quiet voice. Letting the thoughts from deep within rise to the surface. Take time to inhale.

The Lord is my shepherd.
I lack nothing.
He lets me rest in grassy meadows; (or on sunny beaches)
he leads me to restful waters; (or rhythmic oceans) Psalm 23:1-2

Grace and Peace,

Lory Beth

[As I was talking with my husband about how to communicate all that has happened at and since Annual Conference to our church, Greg offered to write this week’s blog from his perspective. So below is his factual, lawyerly, andanalytical interpretation of events in the past 2 months in the United MethodistChurch It comes to you from a clergy spouse, a lawyer, a lay person, and a United Methodist Conference Chancellor. At the end are a couple of links I thought might be helpful for you to explore further. I pray that this helps explain the ever shifting United Methodist landscape this year. Grace and Peace, Lory Beth]

Summer traditionally means beaches, cookouts, homemade ice cream, bee stings, and if you are a Methodist, it means Annual Conference. Tucked away in the hills and valley of Lake Junaluska, our annual conference was held from June 20 through June 23.

Boone UMC sent 5 lay delegates and 2 district delegates this year: JB Byrch, Kaley Conner, Doug Kaufman, Chris Laine, Mary Pergerson, Dan and Colette Krontz.I found myself apologizing to them every so often because voting years can be painful and this was a voting year.The biggest and most time consuming task for our Boone UMC delegates was electing clergy and lay delegates to the 2020 General and Jurisdictional Conferences.

The days get hot, boring, and long in Stewart Auditorium as ballot after ballot gets cast and tallied. But, they eventually elected our 10 clergy and 10 lay delegates for both General and Jurisdictional Conferences, and then another 10 clergy and 10 lay delegates to just Jurisdictional Conference. What do these gatherings do? In overly simplistic terms, the General Conference passes legislation governing the entire denomination, and the Jurisdictional Conference basically elects new bishops.Short version-it’s highly important stuff.

Context is critical to understanding what happened at our annual conference this year and why. Obviously, our denomination has two factions actively at odds with one another, largely involving LGBTQ issues. We have applied labels from our own secular politics to them: the conservative “Traditionalists” and the centrist/liberal “Progressives.” Frankly, neither of these labels make sense. More on that later. But, as in the past several years, LGBTQ issues took center stage.

After our conference wrapped, there were a number of blogs, Facebook posts, etc., floating about with information on Annual Conference but without any context or that were just plain misleading or inaccurate (from both ideological camps). None of what happened this year can be understood without the proper context.

Full disclosure. I was a lay candidate for General Conference and was elected on the second ballot. I am also the Conference Chancellor, meaning I am legal counsel for the Conference and the Bishop. While I am not active in or part of either the Traditionalist or Progressive groups, I was endorsed by a group of Centrist/Progressives in the election process.

Context:

There are 54 annual conferences in the United States.Our conference, the Western North Carolina Conference, was one of the last of the 54 to hold its annual meeting.After the turmoil of the 2019 Special General Conference regarding the Traditional Plan and dissent regarding LGBTQ issues, both the Traditionalists and Centrists/Progressives launched highly organized voting campaigns to elect candidates for General Conference 2020.That played out across our denomination in every annual conference this summer.

The voting results for the U.S. church:

• 38 annual conferences elected both General and Jurisdictional Conference delegations that were 70-100% Centrist/Progressive. In other words, 70% of the annual conferences elected 70-100% Centrist/Progressive delegations to the 2020 General and Jurisdictional Conferences.
• 8 annual conferences voted for delegations which were mostly (between 51% and 69%) Centrist/Progressive.
• 2 annual conferences voted in delegations that were an even mix of Traditionalists and Progressives or which leaned Traditionalist.
• 8 annual conferences voted in delegations that were mostly Traditionalist.

Our own conference elected a 100% Centrist/Progressive delegation (except for three Traditionalist lay alternates). This applies to both the lay and clergy delegations for both General and Jurisdictional Conferences.However, we were entirely within the mainstream of the voting pattern of the U.S. church.

Some blogs and social media posts made it sound like the WNCC had gone wildly rogue. Nope.We did not. Those authors didn’t provide the overall context.

Our own clergy and laity voted squarely with the vast majority of the U.S. church. You know, those hot beds of wild-eyed liberalism like Utah, Wyoming, Arkansas, Tennessee, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. They all voted for 100% Centrist/Progressive delegations, as did South Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, West Virginia, Florida, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada. You get the point.

Why did I say that secular political labels like “conservative” and “liberal” don’t totally make sense in the context of the UMC?Simply overlay a 2016 presidential state voting map over a state map of our denominational elections. They don’t match up geographically in terms of red state/blue state at all.

The voting trend itself reflected two realities: math and organization.

The majority of American UMC clergy and laity are not evangelical conservatives. UMC laity in the U.S. is very middle of the road or lean toward “Progressive” or do not identify with either the Traditionalist or Progressive camps. How do we know this? Earlier this year (before the 2019 Special General Conference), United Methodist Communications conducted an online poll of laity in the U.S. The results indicated that 44% of respondents identified as conservative in theology, while 48% identified as moderate or liberal, with 8% not clearly identifying with either faction. In answers to specific theological questions, the results indicated that the unidentified block tended to align with the moderate/progressive block.So, that 8% trends to centrist/progressive on issues. Your 48% becomes 56%.

Online polling can be highly suspect because the pool has to opt in and those respondents tend to be a more motivated group of respondents with more of an agenda than you find in the general populace.It is easy to have sampling problems with online polling. And, as in any poll, the results are only as good as the question. The questions in the poll were very broad, open ended, vague and theological in nature. They are not issue oriented. The poll did not gauge Traditional Plan or One Church Plan support, and it did not gauge LGBTQ issues. I’m a bit of a closet political junkie, have a degree in Political Science, worked on a couple campaigns, and spent years helping large apparel companies construct surveys for competitive ads, and I did not personally think the polling questions were very good questions and they certainly were not designed to gauge the state of the U.S. denomination on specific issues. While the poll is useful in showing that a substantial majority of the U.S. laity is not conservative but rather leans centrist/progressive, the poll got something wrong. It did not accurately gauge the extent of moderate to progressive lean of the laity in the U.S. It undercounted it. By a lot.How do we know that? Look at the recent election results.

The election results clearly show that 85% of the U.S. church clergy delegates are labeled Centrist/Progressive and 15% Traditionalist and 63% of the lay delegates are Centrist/Progressive with 27% Traditionalist. No question that is how the annual conference delegates (lay and clergy) voted on a national level. This is simple, raw election data.

However you slice it, combining laity and clergy, the math has always been against the Traditionalist camp in the U.S., but not internationally. Historically, the Traditionalists have been more organized that the Progressives. This year was the first time middle of the road folks and progressives (clergy and lay) simply organized. The results were wholly predictable. It made the difference this voting cycle.

So, no, your annual conference has not lost its mind and gone off on a left wing tangent. What happened in the WNCC is what happened everywhere else because that is the state of our church in the U.S.

The effects of the Centrist/Progressive organization spilled over into a series of petitions passed by our Annual Conference. UMC church law divides petitions into two categories: aspirational (which don’t require you to do anything and which merely express an opinion) and prescriptive (which require some sort of action, like spending money on a certain item or submitting legislation to General Conference).

This year, the WNCC adopted several petitions that espoused aspirational disagreement with the Traditional Plan. We were one of 28 of the 54 annual conferences (52% of all the annual conferences) that rejected the Traditional Plan.

One of the petitions passed by the WNCC called for aspiring to the four commitments of UMCNext, a group of Centrist/Progressive Methodists (clergy and lay) working on a new vision for the UMC. My wife, Lory Beth, was one of 11 signatories, all the members of UMCNext from the WNCC. The petition lifts up the Methodist Wesleyan Quadrilateral of using scripture, tradition, reason and experience in our understanding and discerning of God’s will as well as our call in our baptismal vows to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in the many forms it exists in our world. The petition also rejected the Traditional Plan as inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ and pledged to work within the UMC to amend the Book of Discipline to make it more equitable for LGBTQ persons. The petition passed with 63% of the WNCC voting in the affirmative.Again, the petition was aspirational.There is no direct implication for Boone UMC and our own operations other than an invitation to explore whether our church agrees or disagrees with the petition. And other conferences passed the same or very similar things.

But there were prescriptive petitions passed that require our Annual Conference to submit legislation to the 2020 General Conference seeking changes in the Traditional Plan. For example, Green Street UMC presented a petition seeking removal of statements from the Book of Discipline declaring homosexuality incompatible with Christian teaching. It passed with 692 votes for and 481 votes against (58% in the affirmative). So, later this year, our Conference Secretary will submit the petition to the 2020 General Conference for consideration.

Were we outside the trend? No. The WNCC was squarely with the majority of the rest of the U.S. church.

But the WNCC was not only focused on LGBTQ issues.We passed legislation creating a child advocacy commission on the Conference level. We changed the way clergy elections for General Conference are handled (clergy can now submit their names as candidates in advance of the election). We also passed a petition seeking greater attention to gender issues in pastoral appointments.

At the end of the day, while the centrist/progressive voting swept the U.S. church delegations and annual conference petitions, the centrists/progressives have a lot of work to do if they wish to roll back the Traditionalist legislation adopted at the 2019 Special General Conference.They are still outvoted by the U.S. traditionalists and a coalition of delegates from Asia and Africa. The margins will be a lot closer but not close enough best I can tell. Progressive blogs and social media did not address this reality very much, but it is the reality. Was a strong message sent to the international church? Yes. Will it make a difference? Only time will tell.

But it is in the Jurisdictional Conferences, which elect bishops, that the impact of the Centrist/Progressive delegations will be immediately felt.Every Jurisdictional Conference will have a supermajority of Centrist/Progressive delegates. The import being Traditionalists will have no influence over the election of bishops as they have had in the past. Centrists/ Progressives will select bishops going forward. Most likely, we will see episcopal candidates enter their names which are imminently qualified but who have sidelined themselves in the past because they could not have gotten past Traditionalist checkpoints.That will have deep ramifications for the U.S. church and its relations with the international denomination.

That is the raw context in terms of numbers and trends.

Annual Conference is not all politics and debate.The UMC is a connectional system.Over the years, you meet a lot of people and hopefully make new friends from across the Connection. You see church members, pastors, who you started a journey with and who are now way older than they were when you started.You honor the memory of clergy who have passed away, their spouses, preachers who were giants in their day. You recall all the behind the scenes dramas that every year at Junaluska holds. You see the little kids you used to know, who are now all grown with their own kids in tow.Lots of history. But this year, I was stuck in the present. The most touching moment for me was closing worship.I got to worship with some of our Boone UMC delegates. Doug Kaufman and I have played music together but never worshipped side by side. I see Colette and Dan all the time but have never sung hymns with them.

You can crunch all the numbers, pour over percentages, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean a lot unless there is a church, the connectional system, that is still around to matter and make a difference in the lives of our people and their families. That’s why understanding the Annual Conference elections matters.

Greg Huffman

 

Here is a link to more information about what happened at the WNCC Annual Conference: WNCC Annual Conference

Here is a link to the petition that was submitted at Annual Conference that Lory Beth was a signatory on : Petitions 2019

 

Grace and Peace,

Lory Beth

 

What is going on in the United Methodist Church?Have you had friends outside the denomination ask you that question? I have.A lot. It’s not an easy conversation to have. But it is one that our denomination has been struggling with for years. What has become so very clear to me in the last week is that we, as a denomination, are in very different places depending on where you live in the US. Many of our churches have not been talking about human sexuality and the UMC stance on inclusion of LGBTQ persons. While others, for a long time, have been resisting the current UMC stance that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching and prohibits same sex marriages and LGBTQ ordination.

While this blog is intended specifically for those who are a part of the Boone UMC community, I realize other eyes will read this as well.It’s long and I’m sorry for that.But I am writing this to help our congregation continue to understand what is happening and how it affects our church or not. I know there are people who don’t want us to talk about this for fear of the discomfort it will cause. We are afraid that people may get upset, leave the church,or withhold their giving. That is already happening in our churches across the Conference. It is happening nationally. Denominationally, giving is way down. Some churches are attempting to break away. Several churches in our own conference have started dialogue about exiting. We are afraid that someone might ask us what we think and that our answer might change how the other person sees us. We are afraid that we will disagree on this issue and that somehow that means we are forever on opposite teams. We are afraid that people, our friends, will get mad at us or ridicule us.

However people are talking about it in the doctor’s office and the grocery line and at business meetings. For us not to talk about it at the church is like a parent who knows they need to talk to their children about sex but don’t want to. Yet their kids are having the conversation with others. It’s time for us to become accurately informed about what has happened in the United Methodist denomination and what is happening now so Boone UMC can figure out where we are in this conversation.

I have no idea where the heart of Boone UMC is on the spectrum of belief about LGBTQ people’s relationship and rights in the United Methodist Church.It became very apparent to me this week that most of our church doesn’t either, and that is why itis time for us to become informed and then work out our thoughts and reactions together.

So the rest of this blog will focus on two things. We will, as promised, first review what happened when the UMC Judicial Council reviewed the legislation that passed at the special called General Conference of 2019. In the second half, I will share about a conference I attended this week on what is happening in the denomination and moving forward.

On April 25, 2019, the Judicial Council for the UMC issued two rulings. One dealt with a broad set of the “Traditional Plan” legislation. The other ruling examined the new “disaffiliation” provision.

What the Judicial Council Struck Down

The Judicial Council struck down amendments to the Book of Discipline which would have:

• Required Bishops and Boards of Ordained Ministry (every conference has a board that approves candidates for ministry) to certify annually that they were not ordaining LGBTQ ministerial candidates;
• Required Boards of Ordained Ministry to investigate the sex lives and history of ministerial candidates and which also required Board members to individually certify that they would uphold and enforce church doctrine regarding LGBTQ ordination and prohibitions regarding same sex marriages;
• Required every annual conference to certify they were not ordaining LGBTQ candidates (failure to certify would lead to cutting off of all denominational funds to the conference and loss of use of the cross and flame Methodist logo); and,
• Allowed the involuntary leave or forced retirement of bishops under certain circumstances, largely related to LGBTQ issues.

The above were all deemed unconstitutional under our denomination’s governing documents for a variety of reasons.

What the Judicial Council Upheld

The Judicial Council upheld the following amendments to the Book of Discipline:

• A broadening of the definition of “self avowed practicing homosexual.” Prior to the 2019 General Conference, the definition was restricted to persons who admitted that they were a practicing homosexual to their bishop or board of ordained ministry. The new definition encompasses anyone who makes such an admission to the public in general (not just a bishop or member of the board), and it automatically includes anyone in a same sex marriage or a same sex union (without regard to a public declaration of orientation or their actual sexual practice, i.e. celibacy would not matter). Under new church law, these people could not be ordained or be consecrated as a bishop.
• The “just resolution” process was amended so that a person who files a complaint against a bishop or clergy for violating the Book of Discipline must be included in any settlement of the complaint.Prior to the amendment, if the bishop referred a complaint to church council for trial, the church council could settle a matter with a defendant any way they saw fit. The system was originally set up similar to our criminal justice system where the district attorney can dispose of charges as they see fit, reach plea bargains with defendants, etc. No longer. The original complaining party now has to approve of the settlement. This addresses concerns that charges against clergy performing same sex marriages were being disposed of through settlements that carried little or no penalty which original complaining parties had no say in.
• Language clarifying that bishops cannot consecrate a bishop who is a self avowed homosexual, nor can they ordain ministerial candidates who are self avowed homosexuals, even if the candidate is recommended by a board of ordained ministry.
• A mandatory minimum sentencing provision for clergy performing same sex weddings or blessing same sex unions was upheld.A first offense requires a one year suspension without pay. A second offense leads to surrender of ministerial credentials.
• A “disaffiliation” path for churches that disagree with the “Traditional Plan” legislation was upheld, subject to one judicially imposed requirement. This exit path is very narrow. A church cannot leave just because they have a broad, long standing set of disagreements with the denomination. They have to specifically disagree with the Traditional Plan as passed at the 2019 General Conference and certify their reasons. While they can keep their property, they have to pay any outstanding apportionments for the prior year and pay the next 12 months of apportionments, they also have to pay their unfunded pension obligations, and pay off their existing debt (or get it assigned to their new church entity).All of this gets wrapped up in a written agreement with the Conference Trustees, and finally, as required by the Judicial Council, the annual conference itself has to vote to approve the disaffiliation. This provision expires on December 31, 2023.

That is what happened this spring.

The reaction denominationally? It has spurred a lot movement. Groups are forming and reacting in a variety of ways to what happened.

First of all, the conservative branch of the United Methodist Church is being led by two primary organizations. The Good News movement has existed for decades,and they are pushing for traditionalists to stay and “purify” the denomination by continuing to push the church towards an even stronger Traditionalist stance. They are attempting to fix the legislation deemed unconstitutional by the Judicial Council so that they can introduce it again at the next General Conference in 2020. In other words, we are headed for the same denominational fight next year. The other branch of the conservative United Methodist Church is a newer organization called the WCA (Wesleyan Covenant Association). The WCA wants to leave the denomination and form their own Methodist expression. These are the leaders of the side that ultimately prevailed at General Conference 2019.

On the other side of this conversation there are several newly forming groups that are trying to figure out a response. Most of these groups reject the language and theology of the Traditional Plan regarding the relationship and rights of LGBTQ persons.Last week, there was a large conference in Kansas City called UMCNext. The organizers asked for and invited 10 representatives from each Annual Conference in the United States to attend. I was one of the persons nominated as a representative from the WNCC,which I took as a huge responsibility. I was part of a 3 day conversation that was made up of centrist and progressive United Methodist who were not in agreement on what should happen next but were in agreement that the Traditional Plan was not a just or faithful direction for the United Methodist Church to continue to embrace.

There is more to share about this experience, but quite frankly, a great deal of the conversation and information collected is still being processed. Here is a linkto a website that provides more information about the UMCNext gathering. What has become clear is that there is a strong and large movement within the United Methodist Church in the US that cannot abide by the newly adjusted language and penalties that have been added to the Book of Discipline which will only be strengthened in 2020 at the next General Conference. This reflects the overall schism between the UMC in the US (being more moderate) and the much more conservative international church. And because of this response,there will be change coming to the United Methodist Church. Some groups will be working towards negotiating dissolution of the United Methodist Church as a denomination in order to form two or more new expressions of the United Methodist Church. Others will choose to stay and “reform” within the current UMC from within. Others are no longer able to ignore and are ready to honestly discuss and discern their own beliefs. We are past the possibility of going back to the way it was before General Conference 2019.

And that is why Boone UMC has to do the hard work of honestly wrestling with our beliefs so that we as a church can determine where are we when it comes to the rights and relationship of LGBTQ persons in our church? How do we interpret Scripture and how have we discerned the will of the Holy Spirit when it comes to same gender persons in faithful, love filled marriages? How do we wrestle with the long held church’s stance on this belief when we consider how the church has shifted on slavery, segregation and integration,and women in ministry? This is hard work and it is not as black and white as we would long for it to be.

So let me be clear. No one is asking Boone UMC to leave the denomination. That is not what is before us. What is before us is the reality that a time is coming where we will have to make some choices. We need to articulate what it is we do believe. So Church Council agreed at this past week’s meeting that we will begin a process of educating the congregation on all that has taken place and providing you with the information and the resources you need to do some theological discernment. Or maybe it’s affirming the theological work you have already done. We will use a variety of strategies to inform you, this blog being one of those tools.

There’s more to be shared and said. But let me close with this Scripture. I love when the Holy Spirit moves personally in my life.During a very difficult and stressful week that seemed geared towards division my devotional theme happened to be “Love One Another”. Tuesday’s Scripture reading was from Paul:

“Therefore, as God’s choice, holy and loved, put on compassion kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with each other and, if someone has a complaint against anyone, forgive each other. As the Lord forgave you, so also forgive each other. And over all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.The peace of Christ must control your hearts – a peace into which you were called in one body. -Colossians 3:12-15 (CEB)

And the weekly prayer: Ever-loving God, who having loved us loves us still, help us to hear again your word, “By this shall they know you are my disciples; that you love one another.” Turn our hostility into hospitality and our callousness into care. Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Grace and Peace,

Lory Beth