I am writing this letter to you, my fellow church members, to help clarify a few things that maybe haven’t been so clear to you recently related to our church’s future.
You’ve been receiving some emails from the church about an upcoming vote by your Board of Stewards. If you’re like church members that I have spoken with, there are questions about the emails you’ve been receiving and events related to voting about our future with the United Methodist Church. I thought it might be good to provide some additional insights to fill in some gaps.
This is going to be a little lengthy (update: that turned out to be an understatement), but hang in there because there’s a lot to explain based on what’s gone on since August, but I hope you’ll find these thoughts helpful.
Grab some egg nog and read along.
Why are we re-voting about potentially leaving the United Methodist Church?
The short answer is “I don’t really know.”
The longer answer is “I kind of know, but it’s going to require some background and clarification, so bear with me as we go through a timeline”.
August 17th – Board of Stewards/Informational Church Meeting
On August 17th, a Board of Stewards meeting was held in the sanctuary to inform the Riverchase UMC board and congregation about an upcoming vote by your Board of Stewards. Some of you may have attended this meeting. The vote would decide whether we would enter a process as a church called “discernment”. The entire church membership was invited to attend.
The discernment process is a period of time when churches bring speakers in, have discussions, and pray about whether to remain a United Methodist Church. The formal process and timeline are defined by our North Alabama Conference. At the end of the discernment process (usually several months long), the entire congregation has a chance to vote on whether to remain a United Methodist Church, join another denomination, or become independent.
Prior to this August 17th meeting, our Board of Stewards members were given a chance to submit questions about this discernment process to be answered in front of the congregants attending the meeting. Our senior pastor, Tony Johnson, subsequently took the time to answer these questions submitted by the board in front of the congregation.
August 23rd – The First Vote About Entering Discernment
Roughly a week later on August 23rd, the Board of Stewards met to vote on whether or not to even enter the discernment process.
Several board members spoke both for and against going through the discernment process. There was time to discuss and ask questions about the process. Voting was overseen by our District Superintendent.
After discussion and three speakers each speaking in favor of and against entering discernment, the Board of Stewards voted 34-22 not to enter the discernment process.
On August 31st, the congregation received an email from Tony updating everyone on the outcome of the vote, with a positive tone of moving forward and the hope of putting several years of unsettled days behind us.
November 6th – Ten Weeks Later, We’re Proposing to Re-vote
On Sunday, November 6th, a regularly scheduled Board of Stewards meeting was held.
Additionally, the church’s annual “charge conference” meeting was held just before. This charge conference is a common, annually-held event that is run by our district superintendent and is required by our Book of Discipline for all churches to handle some required report read outs and other administrative acts. They usually are short and our district superintendent leaves after that to allow the regular Board of Stewards meeting to proceed.
Noteworthy here is that in these brief charge conferences, the next year’s class of Board of Stewards members and leaders are approved after being nominated by our Committee on Nominations & Leadership Development. Thus, for some in attendance, this would be their last Board of Stewards meeting as board members or in leadership roles as their terms came to an end and a new slate of board members comes on in January 2023.
During the Board of Stewards portion of the meeting, several ‘recent events’ were mentioned related to the United Methodist Church. After these were brought up, a motion was made for the Board of Stewards to re-vote in January 2023 on whether or not to enter the discernment process. The motion was seconded and passed by voice vote.
The following day, Monday, November 7th, a church-wide email was sent out stating the following:
At the meeting of the Board of Stewards on Sunday, November 6, 2022, a motion was made and passed to add the vote to decide whether or not to enter the Discernment Process to the first Board of Stewards meeting in January.
Between now and then information regarding the United Methodist Church will be made available through our Church website as well as email distributions. The Special Statement that was read at the meeting tonight is below:
As promised after our recent vote on August 28, the Pastors and laity leadership have continued to monitor the local and national UMC situations. Since that time, we feel some things have changed that warrant us to move into an informational gathering phase. Our options for providing information are somewhat limited outside of the Discernment process according to Rick Owen, our District Superintendent. This means we cannot have speakers come without entering the actual Discernment process. It does not, however, restrict us from disseminating information at this time.
We realize that questions continue and fully expect the 2023 BOS to address the issue in January with a potential vote to enter into the formal Discernment process. This would allow us to remain firmly within the timelines to disaffiliate or not disaffiliate by the end of 2023. Until that time, please continue to support our staff and each other as we navigate the ever-changing environment.
Sincerely,
Board of Stewards
This happened after questions were submitted by the board over ten weeks earlier and answered one by one by our senior pastor in front of our board and church members attending an informational meeting
…and after we had received the figure for the amount of money that it would cost us to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church (over $780,000, by the way, to “buy our way out”)
…and after a discussion that took place during the first board meeting when the first vote was held.
Ten weeks after the first vote, a motion was made to re-vote.
Trying to Understand the Reasons to Re-vote
Once word of this re-vote began making it out to the congregation, I heard many questions and comments from people who were exasperated that this had happened.
“I don’t understand – why are we doing this again?”
As I went back through the emails sent out to the congregation following this November 6th “re-vote motion”, I looked for the reasons being provided to our church members for this.
The first email on November 7th, 2022 stated:
The next email sent out on November 28th, 2022 stated:
These emails reference “local and national UMC situations”, “things have changed”, and “recent events” as reasons to re-vote on entering the discernment process. What was not explained, however, were what these situations and reasons were.
Reasons, Events, and Situations Explained
I asked our Board of Stewards leadership to clarify what these were so I could help others possibly understand.
A response back from our board leadership on November 29th, 2022 explained that three events were referenced by Tony in the November 6th board meeting prior to the re-vote:
“-Bishop Sue of the North Georgia Conference encouraging same-sex unions from the pulpit. This happened in the same Jurisdiction as our Conference is in.
-Other large local churches such as Vestavia Hills UMC that had previously just talked about going into the Discernment Process/disaffiliation were no longer considering it – they actually did take the steps to do so.
-St. Andrews UMC did not follow the Book of Discipline with its decision to disaffiliate.”
Now while these are, in fact, three events that have happened since the first Board of Stewards vote, they are each loaded with a lot of detail and context that is important to understand – especially if using them as a reason for a board to re-vote on a ten-week-old decision.
Reason Given #1: Bishop Sue and a Pride Week Sermon
Since this event took place next door in Georgia in a completely different United Methodist conference than the one we’re in, it’s worthwhile to understand districts, conferences, and jurisdictions in the United Methodist Church. If you already understand all of that, feel free to skip the next section and we’ll catch up further down.
How the United Methodist Church is Structured
The first level: Districts
Every United Methodist Church is a member of a geographical “district”. A district usually covers a few counties and the UMC churches in a district are overseen by a district “superintendent” who oversees the churches in the district. In some situations, a district superintendent will cover multiple districts depending on their size.
The second level: Annual Conferences
There are eight districts in the North Alabama Annual Conference that covers roughly the top half of Alabama. Riverchase UMC is in the South Central District of the North Alabama Annual Conference. Each annual conference has a bishop that oversees the district superintendents in the conference as well as other administrative positions.
The third level: Jurisdictions
You can probably guess that jurisdictions are geographic groupings of annual conferences. Our North Alabama Annual Conference is within the Southeastern Jurisdiction.
The Southeastern Jurisdiction covers the entire area from Virginia to Kentucky down to Mississippi and every United Methodist Church south and east of that. There are 13 other Annual Conferences in the Southeastern Jurisdiction.
Jurisdictions don’t really have a “head” but rather are self-governed by committees made up of pastors within their jurisdictions.
We’ll stop there for now and not go into the international organization.
Here’s why the organizational structure part is important to understand related to Bishop Sue.
Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson has been the bishop of the North Georgia Conference covering basically the top half of Georgia since 2016. She will become the bishop of the Virginia Conference in 2023.
The North Georgia Conference thought of “Bishop Sue” favorably. She has been a vocal supporter of the marginalized and the oppressed (seems like a good thing, right?) Much to North Georgia’s disappointment and because of her successes in North Georgia, she was appointed as the bishop of the Virginia Conference this fall. Bishop Robin Dease will replace her in January.
On October 9th, Bishop Sue gave a sermon as part of LGBTQ+ “Pride Week” at Saint Mark UMC in Atlanta.
In this sermon, filled with messages about acceptance, loving others as Christ would, and other basic Christian tenets, she makes the following statement:
“…but our ethic is to cherish each other and you know what? If somebody in the sight of God and the church wants to stand in front of the altar and pledge to love another human being as Christ loves the church, I think that should be highly encouraged.”
Keep in mind, here – when bishops are consecrated, they vow “to exercise the discipline of the whole Church”, which alludes in part to the Book of Discipline. To my knowledge, Bishop Sue hasn’t violated anything in the Book of Discipline by this statement.
She didn’t say she would start allowing her ministers in her conference to perform same-sex marriages.
Our own bishop, Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett, has stated in the past that she intends to uphold what is set forth in the Book of Discipline.
Is what Bishop Sue said contradictory to what is currently in the Book of Discipline related to same-sex marriages? Probably so. But I think we might all find some things in our social position doctrines that we are “iffy” about.
Is This a Relevant “Recent Event”?
In my opinion, it’s a recent event (October 2022), but not relevant.
Unfortunately, our Board of Stewards didn’t get a chance to view the video of her sermon prior to this motion to re-vote because it was not sent out to them in advance.
Let’s switch back to why this is being pitched as relevant to Riverchase UMC. Per the statement back from our leadership, this happened in a conference (North Georgia) in the same jurisdiction (Southeastern) as our conference (North Alabama).
Conferences and the leadership of the bishops tend to work independently from one another, led by bishops who are each distinct in their personalities but connected by our common policies and beliefs. Bishops are held accountable to one another through jurisdictional committees.
It’s highly unlikely that our bishop would suddenly change her stance because of a nearby conference’s bishop and should not be cause for concern. Bishops are chosen for their leadership abilities and ability to discern. Opinions that bishops have are not passed on like the flu just because they’re near one another.
Thus, this doesn’t seem relevant to our church and re-voting.
Reason Given #2: Other Large Local Churches in Discernment
Something that you’ll probably hear referred to when the discernment process comes up is “paragraph 2553”. This was a paragraph added to the Book of Discipline at a Special Session of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church in 2019. It provides a documented way for churches to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church. Within this addition is a specified expiration date for the paragraph and its rules – December 31, 2023.
This means that there’s a “window of opportunity” for churches to consider pulling out of the UMC and it closes in a little over a year.
On top of that guideline, paragraph 2553 allows individual conferences to set other guidelines that assist churches through the steps of discernment and disaffiliation. This is the case in the North Alabama Conference. A timeline must be followed that details the phases that churches must go through, spending a minimum amount of time in each. The minimum time that can be spent in the discernment process is three months.
Because of the expiration of paragraph 2553 and the timeline laid out by the conference, churches around the North Alabama Conference area have been considering and going through the discernment process for some time now.
Some smaller churches went through the discernment process quickly. Some didn’t enter the process at all. And some larger local churches in our conference – like Vestavia Hills UMC, Trinity UMC, and Canterbury UMC – entered the discernment process earlier in 2022 and even late 2021.
Vestavia Hills UMC completed its discernment process and the congregation voted on November 13th to disaffiliate from the UMC.
Trinity UMC’s Discernment Team proposed unanimously to stay in the UMC.
Canterbury UMC is in the middle of its discernment process and, per their website, will wrap up sometime in mid-2023.
Is This a Relevant “Recent Event”?
It’s relevant because it’s on the subject of the discernment process, however, only the outcomes at Vestavia Hills UMC and Trinity UMC are recent.
Understanding more about what other similarly-sized churches in our area are doing is prudent for any pastoral staff and congregation.
These churches have been well underway with their discernment processes, dating as far back as late 2021.
And all were long underway well before our first August meeting at Riverchase UMC.
What had not happened yet, however, was the Vestavia Hills UMC congregation voting to disaffiliate. This only happened within the last month.
So if we’ve known about these discernment processes, why would this be a recent event that might cause us to need to re-vote?
My guess is that seeing another large church disaffiliate in the area caused members in favor of disaffiliation to wonder if the opportunity could present itself for that to happen at Riverchase UMC. But we had already voted not to move into the discernment phase.
The only way to have another opportunity to vote was if the recent votes at the other churches were used as a reason for us to re-vote.
Reason Given #3: A Church in Texas Didn’t Disaffiliate the Right Way
This one was in the news in mid-October. Google “St. Andrew Texas disaffiliation” and you’ll find plenty of results.
Here’s what happened.
St. Andrew UMC, a megachurch in Plano, Texas, had an executive leadership team decide to essentially skip a discernment process and disaffiliate. It made the decision after “study and votes from key church committees”. They stated that the congregation was “overwhelmingly supportive”.
The problem was not necessarily that they skipped discernment and voted to disaffiliate, it’s how they went about doing it.
Part 3 of paragraph 2553 in the Book of Discipline clearly lays out how churches should go about disaffiliating:
3. Decision Making Process–The church conference shall be conducted in accordance with ¶ 248 and shall be held within one hundred twenty (120) days after the district superintendent calls for the church conference. In addition to the provisions of ¶ 246.8, special attention shall be made to give broad notice to the full professing membership of the local church regarding the time and place of a church conference called for this purpose and to use all means necessary, including electronic communication where possible, to communicate. The decision to disaffiliate from The United Methodist Church must be approved by a two-thirds (2/3) majority vote of the professing members of the local church present at the church conference.
St. Andrew didn’t follow the Book of Discipline’s process in paragraph 2553. They didn’t allow their congregation to vote on disaffiliating, as was required. They allowed their executive committees to make the decision to disaffiliate. They didn’t notify their district superintendent. They didn’t notify the bishop of their conference, who afterward stated, “I was not aware of what St. Andrew was considering; they only contacted me to inform me of their decision.”
Is This a Relevant “Recent Event”?
It is a recent event that happened just about two months ago in October.
But is it relevant?
The argument could be made that this was a situation of a church board and leadership deciding the fate of the church without the congregation voting on it and that Riverchase UMC did the same thing – letting its Board of Stewards decide on disaffiliation instead of the whole church.
Paragraph 2553 in the Book of Discipline doesn’t state anything at all about the role of a church council (i.e. what we call our “Board of Stewards”) in the disaffiliation process.
Disaffiliation from the United Methodist Church has a defined process in paragraph 2553 that churches must follow.
But the Book of Discipline doesn’t define what’s required to stay a United Methodist Church because frankly that’s assumed. After all, we wouldn’t need to vote on something that everyone in our membership committed to when they joined our church.
There are decisions that a Board of Stewards is allowed to make and that are recognized by conferences as being part of normal church operations. They are given authority to make decisions for a church – unless it’s laid out otherwise in our doctrines, and the process for disaffiliating is laid out clearly in paragraph 2553.
And because our church and conference have committed to following the Book of Discipline, we won’t see our Board of Stewards doing something like St. Andrew in Texas did.
So, in my opinion, this isn’t relevant to creating the need to re-vote.
My Thoughts
Our Board of Stewards should be thoroughly informed before voting on anything
In fairness, what I’ve explained about these three ‘recent events’ stated as a reason to re-vote on entering discernment has taken quite a few paragraphs to explain. I’m not sure how this would’ve been communicated to the whole church congregation through email well; it just takes a lot of words.
I’m hopeful that in early January when an informational meeting is held for the congregation, the events I’ve laid out will be presented in a way that would attempt to relate the events to the desire for some to re-vote. We owe it to the congregation to clarify the events and their connections to the re-vote because these have been stated in the emails being sent out as the reason to re-vote about discernment.
But our Board of Stewards should have had all of this detail ahead of time as they help chart a course for our church. This background is important and gives context.
Prior to the November 6th meeting, the board was sent the meeting agenda that stated there would be a “special statement” (which ended up being the information related to the re-vote) coming up at the next meeting, but details were not included in advance. I understand that there was time for people to ask questions in the board meeting as part of the motion.
Let’s be sure to get our board members plenty of supporting information ahead of time and a reasonable amount of time to consider larger issues such as this one.
Why re-vote with brand new members on an old issue?
The proposed re-vote with the current set of board members could’ve actually been done at the same meeting.
If it’s important and had been explained, then why wait at all? It didn’t have to be added to a future agenda. A request could’ve been made to our board chair in advance to get it added to the November 6th meeting agenda, information sent out, and then voted on.
Also, some board members who voted in August not to enter discernment are rolling off in December before the next vote.
Wouldn’t we want a seasoned set of board members (who would be most familiar with the issues) voting with this new information being provided? After all, they heard all of the concerns from speakers the first time around. They could best determine how the “recent events” might apply.
Did we need to make this the first thing a new set of board members votes on in January?
I’m hopeful that we’ll do a crash course specifically with these new board members before the January re-vote so that they understand what I’ve detailed above about these events as well as paragraph 2553 and the conference’s requirements, etc.
Trying to completely satisfy the “more information” need is a spiraling, bottomless hole of neverending effort and we need to focus on God’s work
One of the sentiments I was made aware of was that after the first vote in August some felt like they really needed “more information” before the vote took place. I’m not sure if these were congregational members or Board of Stewards members.
As a Board of Stewards chair, I heard this lament for years relating to the future of the United Methodist Church.
“Tell us about events happening related to XYZ group that is for/against the United Methodist Church” or “send us more information about XYZ group.”
“We need more information.”
If you’ve ever been a member of a smaller church, you know that everybody pitches in and has to wear multiple hats. People have to be proactive and pick up the baton. Want a Christmas pageant for the kids? Someone has to step up and volunteer for that while also being in the choir and having other responsibilities. Everyone has to do things themselves to make “church” happen.
Our pastors and staff have busy jobs. Planning worship services, developing programs, managing staff, being a part of community outreach, and doing a whole host of other things. Our lay leaders have jobs themselves, run their own businesses, and have families and ballgames and recitals to attend.
The church is currently limited in how it can communicate to the congregation because we’re not officially in the discernment phase (that’s a conference requirement).
There is a plethora of information out there that’s available. We don’t need the church responsible for sending out everything we need to know. We shouldn’t expect the church to be Google. Let’s do our own searching. Let’s be a proactive and educated congregation about these issues.
As a side note, I will continue to provide information on this site that will help us navigate toward remaining in the United Methodist Church as we start looking toward the future.
Discernment isn’t necessarily a bad thing
I believe the discernment process – done correctly – can be a healthy thing for churches. Locally, I feel that Trinity UMC’s process and final documents outlining their findings were excellent.
However, I have friends and pastors in other churches around the state and country and have heard some really disappointing stories about processes that churches used, documents that were disseminated, and so on.
And in full transparency, there’s nothing that prevents a congregation from voting not to enter discernment, then re-voting, and again and again; even once entering the discernment phase, we could vote to halt discernment. We just have to weigh the value of the repetition versus what it puts the church through.
Be prayerful about the idea of discernment. It would likely take four to six months of time or more from a team of volunteers and leadership from pastors and staff.
Let’s not ruin our momentum
From what I understand, some people were unhappy after the first vote happened in August. I’m sure that there were some who weren’t happy with the first vote, but were just glad to end some uncertainty.
Others, like me and my family, were glad to put the past few years behind us and glad for us to continue to be Riverchase United Methodist Church for the foreseeable future.
And while we may have different thoughts on some of the issues at hand, Tony has brought new energy to the church. He’s been in the community talking about Riverchase UMC. He’s asking people to bring friends to church. He’s encouraging us to be the people who are supposed to be God’s hands and feet.
We need not ruin momentum with actions that create further questions or doubt.
Make your thoughts known to a Board of Stewards members and others
Your voting members of the Board of Stewards need to hear from you. You likely know someone on the board. In the ‘Resources’ menu of this site, you’ll find the names of the 2023 voting members of the Board of Stewards (yes, these include pastors and staff in some cases too).
That friend you know on the board? Give them a shout or drop them an email. Let them know your thoughts. You can log on to our church’s website and get contact information for pastors and staff. If you would like a full leadership and committee directory or ever want meeting minutes from any Board of Stewards meeting, contact the church office and they’ll be glad to get the information to you.
But make sure your voice is heard. Don’t assume someone else will call or email. Don’t assume there are hundreds of other people who will handle all of this.
Forward this post to other church members. Share it on Facebook so that your Riverchase UMC friends see it and become informed.
In Closing
If you’ve made it this far and finished this in full, I’ll add some “prayer sprinkles” on top of the prayers that I already say for you as my fellow church members. I love our church and the potential for our future and will be with you along the way.
Pray for wisdom in knowing how to support our pastors, staff, and lay leaders of the church.
Pray for the Holy Spirit to help with your words (Proverbs 12:14).
Pray for the ability to listen (Proverbs 2:2).
Praise God in every prayer that we can bring more people to know Christ. Continue to talk to your small groups and youth about what you want our church to be in the future and how we can best show God’s love to others.
May the Holy Spirit fill you this Advent season as we light our homes and hearts in celebrating the coming of Christ. May you experience the peace of that silent night in Bethlehem.
Go and be Riverchase United.
