Yes... There is no way the 76% vote for approval is representative of the membership at large. The leadership straight up stacked the deck at General Conference.

@@GasCityGuy Yes, that, but I'm specifically referring to the promises regarding the 2019 meeting. The rules weren't enforced, the Discipline was ignored, and the commitments made to the traditionalists were abandoned.

🙏🙏🙏 prayers for you and others. Know that many care about you.

We were in San Diego a few years back and wanted to attend Sunday services. Online one after the other UMC congregations were all Rainbow depot. Finally we found one about 25 minutes away. What a wonderful service. No agenda other than Jesus!. I pray for those folks routinely.

Sue, stop all donations immediately. Give only what is required and prepare to close. Sue the UMC it's now appropriate and ugly and they deserve it.

After church meet in the parking lot. Vote to leave. Leave, and all the power of that church is gone. It’s not hard. Then contact the GMC to see what options your group now has. If a congregation of 100-200 want to plant it will happen.

@@CFCMahomet Well spoken. But in many expensive areas (like here in coastal California), there is simply no affordable space to rent, let alone land to purchase. Going rate for a small/medium worship space Sundays only is low five figures/month in California. That's the whole church budget for most small/medium churches.

Formerly PC(USA) here (and growing up, attended a UMC congregation that exited as soon as 2553 was available) and that is my prayer, too, for BOTH denominations and their ungodly leadership.

It says such terrible things about the historical leadership of the UMC that they would establish coercive measures like this on the faithful, then deliver these terrible powers into the hands of heretics.

Amen..you can always form a New church plant with the ones who leave.. I've seen several churches formed in that way..

I left as did many others.

Who's "they?"

Unless the tithing is going to building maintenance and staff payroll. Don’t pay apportionments to the UMC, that’s the thing to not pay.

@@paulcooper8335 trapped congregations

I'm going to tithe to a local Food Bank instead of the UMC.

Change to a good church

Yeah of course. This is still America. Yes, it involves whether or not church communities can continue to administer the treasures entrusted to them by previous generations, or if they will be in a position to abandon these things in order to leave the denomination.

The people of the local churches paid for, repaired, put their own sweat and funds and labor into their churches. The UMC basically got their apportionment MONEY, and because of the trust clause, the UMC owns the property. DONE. Yes, it was agreed to put the trust clause in and sign the church and property over….no expectation on where the UMC would go or what they would do. It was inconceivable many years ago. We trusted they would stay Biblical and not worldly. So much for the “Trust Clause”. It was left in a trust that has been broken.

As a former PC(USA), I've been warning my faithful UMC brethren to expect what these ungodly leaders have been doing. They are hypocritically big on diversity of thought, except their actions almost always reveal otherwise. When they do agree with us on something, I came to view it as pure accident, or they went too far and had to reel it back, only for another agency a few days later to confirm that it was an accident.

I'm in the same boat as you are.... as there are no GM churches anywhere near me. I have searched and exhausted all ways to find out. It seems to be a big secret which UM Churches are pulling away. This morning I had a MELTDOWN. I haven't heard any info from my present church . I doknow that my church is called a BRIDGE CHURCH. ( not interested) They will not eventually leave. I'm stuck. Hope it goes well with you. By the way, I too was raised in a Disciples of Christ Church. Joined UMC when there were no DOC where we lived.

So is it interesting that Fields let his local churches think for themselves, or...what exactly is the interesting thing here?

I know what you mean, but don't put these wild liberals on the side of civil rights fighters. That's how they want to see themselves. Violating the clear teaching of the gospel is nothing like being black. Banning gay marriage and opposing gay married lesbians as bishops is nothing like imposing apartheid. But that is the (false) analogy liberals keep making for themselves.

I don’t much like that example of Southern Democrats, but I did go watch that Bartlett UMC video, and that was 38 minutes of pure comedy gold! I’ve never heard so many lies so boldly and so quickly. If wearing trousers could be turned into a lie, that guy would have done it.

It’s laughable that this pastor thinks the Book of Discipline will keep a pastor or church from having to do gay weddings. He must not have been paying attention for the past 10 years when the UMC leaders were completely ignoring the BofD.

@@dwcoyote - Yeah. I know, right. They will ignore the several books of The Bible, but somehow the Book of Discipline is going to make them stop......😆 🤣 😂

I was amazed at the level of denial still being presented to these parishioners. I’m also very curious about their praise for Bishop Graves. Wasn’t he pretty underhanded to GC delegates who wanted to speak the truth?

Identity is negotiated in dialogue with others. We figure out who we are by discerning what we aren’t. We do that by looking at exemplars of what we find objectionable. I would agree that much of the rancor is unhelpful and unnecessary, but I am in favor of a robust dialogue about things we see wrong with the other (and with ourselves). I would like to think I model doing this well, though I’m sure I have failed to reach perfection in this effort.

Nope. I hate editing video. When I have the money to hire a video editor, then I’ll do content like that.

I think that the WCA is just a bit shell-shocked at this moment. It time for the laity in the churches to assert themselves.

The UMC blew straight through heresy, barely looked over their shoulder as they passed apostasy, and is proudly arriving at abomination.

Would you share a link to your source of this information? This is terrible news. Just wondering if this law would include the African bishops that support the UMC changes in favor of the "alphabet" people?

Nice. Keep me updated with how things go here. Send emails to plainspokenpod@gmail.com. May God bless your church as you stay to be faithful to scripture.

The annual conference's board of trustees will assume direct responsibility for any abandoned properties. This will almost certainly be taking place in lots of conferences at a higher frequency than has already been. Many congregations will indeed make the decision you are advocating here, but the cost is pretty great. Many churches have endowments and memorial gifts that were meant to glorify God in memory of people who built and maintained those churches. To leave those things behind and start the ministry afresh is essentially to cut themselves off from the work of previous generations. It is my mind that worshiping the Lord in spirit and in truth is more important than honoring the legacy of those who came before. Even so, I think we should only make such a choice when there is no other way. It really hurts to turn one's back on the past. Sometimes it is a holy hurt, but sometimes it is an unnecessary hurt. This is what hundreds or thousands of congregations are figuring out right now.

@@plainspokenpod We seniors have had to say goodbye to a lot of our past, haven't We? But I have found that we gain a deeper trust and joy in God's eternal treasures, especially his word. Just keep proclaiming the Gospel while we still have time.

​@@laurenkuo2333Well said.

Yeah I saw that they are trying to honor promises made. I sure hope they can. So many churches are about to be trapped unless something incredible happens.

@@plainspokenpod as you know, my husband and I are from the Holston Conference. I always felt like our “former” Bishop was more conservative. We have friends that are still In the UMC and are kind of ok with the changes. Others of my friends want to leave but have 90+year old parents that are confused, and it would be hard for them to leave their life-long church while they are still caring for their parents. So sad. Also, that church has very few members. Some have left a couple of years ago. It has wonderful people, and I hope they don’t close it. Beautiful parsonage, barn,church.

I know its easy to say leave. I was fortunate to belong to a church that disaffiliated. I feel so bad for churches that could not due to expenses.

It is hyperbolic speech. The UMC cannot legally or realistically take people hostage or trap them. Rather, what we are discussing is the church buildings and financial assets. Local churches within the UMC establish their annual conferences as trustees of their assets by virtue of their membership in the UMC. But when they want to leave the denomination, the norm is for annual conferences to assert ownership of the church assets and dispossess the community that built these buildings and were entrusted with this wealth. So the UMC is making people part with their property if they want to be in right covenant relationship. It is an exercise of coercive power that is hard to justify by biblical standards.

@plainspokenpod so the congregations built & paid for the churches but don't own them?

I learned this last week that local congregations can still hypothetically negotiate their way out with their annual conference. I'm waiting to see if any conferences allow this to take place outside of ¶2549.

Yeah that is kind of it. Vast majority of churches and their people, including clergy, are very worried about the UMC leadership behaving badly when they are exposed. They hope that, by helping them save face, they will be inclined to play ball. But it doesn't play out that way...

Ideally, denominations are composed of congregations that have done that theological work to decide what they believe, then they banded together with other churches to share and defend the same doctrine. Unfortunately, when that doctrine is not taught, then congregations lose their shared identity and spread out, being unsustainable. This is what happened in many denominations in the 20th century. We are seeing the fallout that comes when catechesis is neglected. We should indeed reclaim only what doctrines can be supplied from scripture.

Bifurcating the quality of the church from the doctrines of the church is a false dichotomy. What one believes informs how one lives. A snobby or hateful church indicates rotten doctrine at the core. Or if they have good doctrine officially, it betrays that they don't actually believe it. Moreover, a family atmosphere doesn't at all indicate truth. All world religions have intimate gatherings of covenant people. Small cults are particularly well known for having very loving family-like social dynamics. Yes, Jesus said we would be known by our love. However, a warm atmosphere does not constitute a church. A biblical church is united by true doctrine in a loving covenant bond. To exclude either of these things is to dismantle the very concept of a church.

As you know, there were many other conferences in which they refused to let churches exit. Also, in Oklahoma, there was exceptional interference with the richer or better located churches. If you ever hear me speaking falsely about the situation, the please correct me. I would like to think I’ll be receptive. But if your definition of butchering is just shining a light on what is transpiring, well, I think that is unfortunate, and I would disagree. Light is the best disinfectant.

@@plainspokenpod I would like to see a list of churches in Oklahoma that followed the required procedures for disaffiliation but were not allowed to proceed. There certainly can be no complaint about the Texas conferences over which Bishop Scott Jones was presiding. He immediately jumped into the GMC and took with him as many of his churches as he could. He even reportedly went to another conference and tried to get at least one of their churches to disaffiliate. Other active and retired bishops did the same. Retired bishop Bob Hayes was active in encouraging churches to disaffiliate. All in all, the disaffiliaters made quite a haul. They are evangelists for their cause. I’m glad they have created a church in which they are comfortable. Lots of us are happy to remain United Methodists, and that should be our right, too.

Texas was a special case, as its Supreme Court had previously ruled that the Trust Clause was not enforceable back when the Episcopal Church split up. So the UMC was limited in what it could charge disaffiliating churches that wanted to leave. Congregations in other states weren't so lucky. Some have been held hostage by bishops who refused to allow churches to disaffiliate or even discuss entering into a period of discernment. Others put the financial burden so high that congregations couldn't afford to leave.

@@SandyWylie-lg2vh In this very interview, Scott and I affirm that folks who are happy in the UMC should stay. We want you to stay. We don't want you to leave. There was indeed more than one annual conference that was gracious in disposition with respect to local churches that wanted out. Oklahoma was almost one of these. However, it made overt power plays to manipulate the votes and retain the properties at Church of the Servant and Oklahoma City First. I did some decent coverage of both of these if you want to learn those details. I have also been in touch with Tishomingo, but I can't speak to their circumstances yet. There were several annual conferences that either refused to use ¶2553 or made it so costly that it could not be used. Texas was at one far end of the continuum. Conferences like Baltimore-Washington and California-Pacific added a 50% property value tax that was prohibitively expensive. Conferences throughout the denomination had pastors who categorically refused to even allow the conversation, as well as DSes who refused to call the required church conferences. Fields says in this interview, and I tend to agree, that 40% of those churches still in the UMC would leave if they could. If the UMC doesn't let them, they are sealing their own fate of death. A collective body cannot continue forward if they are carrying anything close to that unwilling weight coercively.

@@plainspokenpod I’ve had a life’s journey that’s been both amazing and disheartening. My father and my wife’s father were both Methodist pastors. My father’s career stretched back to 1942, just after the merger of 1939 that created The Methodist Church. A case can be made that that merger was a mistake. It brought back together the Northerners and the Southerners, who had developed different ethoses since their separation in the 1840s. The Methodist Church from Day 1 was always at least 2 different churches under the same roof. I was ordained in Bridgeport, CT, in 1967 and have served in lots of different places including abroad. 1967 is a significant year since the following year saw the birth of the UMC. It was also the year when the steady decline of mainline churches started. So my career stretches to the birth of the UMC. I’ve had a ringside seat. Little did I know in 1967 that my church would decline for 57 straight years and then explode in a ball of fire. This whole thing is like the marriage/divorce phenomenon that we humans are all too familiar with. Two very different people get married. They are aware of their differences, but surely this will all work out. After all, they’re in love, and love conquers all. But as the years roll on, things unravel one bit at a time. There comes a time when separation seems to be the answer. In all divorces two things happen: (1) We all take sides. Surely the rupture is all the fault of one of the parties. (2) Regret and resentment claw at us and won’t let go. Bad feelings haunt us the rest of our lives. One unfortunate dynamic in this ecclesiastical divorce is that in our American culture religion and politics have virtually become fused. It’s a red/blue thing as much as it is theological. In any event, we all have to live with the disheartening divorces we experience. The best thing we can do is wish each other well and get on with our lives. I feel much like King Arthur at the end of Camelot. Everything has gone wrong. The kingdom is in tatters. All he knows to do is to grab a young boy and tell him to spread a message: For one brief shining moment there was a place called Camelot.

Eastern Orthodoxy is cool. I love a lot of it. Just can't involve Mary, the saints, the angels, and relics into my spiritual life in that way. Have tried. Feels pretty clearly like idolatry. Just can't do it.

I know it might seem like that female clergy was the catalyst, and it may factor into this a bit, but this problem is a much deeper theology error than that.

The UMC had been quite liberal for decades prior to them ordaining women.

The GMC is structurally fully egalitarian including women senior pastors.

Many in the GMC do see women pastors as unbiblical, but officially women pastors are allowed. I agree women should not be pastors over men, but do think they can preach if under the authority of a male pastor.

@@fernandoperez8587 Thank you for your response. That’s comforting. I have never been a Methodist before. Full blown egalitarianism (if I can put it that way) is a biblical challenge for me but my current church has hired a patriarch. Not a complimentarian. A patriarch so I have been attending a GMC church for about six months. Pastor is a man but they do let women preach. Have a wonderful day. 🌺

​@@carolbarlow8896I had not heard this. Have been meditating to determine my course. Appreciate the info.

​@@fernandoperez8587that will never be forever, unfortunately.