Professor Calls Reconciling Ministries Network UMC's Most Valuable Player

by

Special to United Methodist Insight

If United Methodists had an MVP award, I would be nominating and organizing a strategy team in support of the Reconciling Ministries Network as Most Valuable Player, not only for their work at this General Conference but for their faithfulness over many decades.

Most of us know about the work of the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN) and its predecessor groups in helping local churches become reconciling congregations that have served as faithful witnesses to full inclusion. There were two reconciling congregations soon after General Conference 1984. Forty years later, there are 1,422 Reconciling ministries and 45,777 Reconciling United Methodists, and those numbers are growing.

Most of us know of the work they have done to remove the exclusionary language in the Book of Discipline and to help foster a more just United Methodist Church. Despite defeats at one General Conference after another, they kept at it. Anyone who has been working behind the scenes, can vouch for the crucial role of RMN in bringing us to the victories of this General Conference and to a more inclusive and just church.

And here is something that most people don’t know but that I know well and will never forget.

When a United Methodist clergyperson is under complaint for disobeying the church’s exclusionary policies, the Reconciling Ministries Network comes to their aid, walks them through the process, and helps them get support, including legal services if needed. This support has been essential in the wake of the punitive policies implemented at the 2019 General Conference.

Soon after I officiated at the wedding of our eldest, Anna, and our daughter-in-law, Abby in May 2022, I began what turned out to be a brutal just resolution and judicial process. When I realized that the process was not going well and was advised to get legal help, I called RMN. When my bishop kept changing the terms of the agreement, and, then, insisted he would sign our agreement only if I gave up my vote at Jurisdictional Conference, I texted my friends at RMN.

 And when the bishop, a week before his term ended, referred my complaint to counsel for the church, making it a judicial process, I called my friends at RMN. More importantly, throughout that seven-month process, they texted and called to check in on me.

"Just resolution" – the UMC's process to resolve complaints against clergy without going to a church trial – was the most brutal process I have ever experienced. It was made all the more difficult by the fact that my late husband was very ill and hospitalized five times over those months. (I even attended some of the meetings from hospital hallways and consultation rooms.) I will never forget that the people at RMN walked with me and have walked with so many others in our time of need. I give thanks to God for the Reconciling Ministries Network. 

In lieu of an UMC-MVP award, which even if it did exist I would have no authority to grant, I would like to raise a glass before this General Conference is over to the Reconciling Ministries Network, its current and former staff, board members, and supporters. Thank you, Reconciling Ministries Network. And thanks to all the groups and individuals who have kept faith over these many years and enabled us to reach this season. 

The Rev. Dr. Rebekah Miles was a clergy delegate to the 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2019 General Conferences and was elected as a reserve delegate to this conference. She gave up that position when she transferred her clergy membership to Mountain Sky Conference through its "Safe Harbor" program so that she would be free to officiate at weddings without risking loss of her ordination credentials. Dr. Miles, the Susanna Wesley Centennial Professor of Practical Theology and Ethics at UMC-related Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, is a recent widow and the proud mother of two adult children, Katherine and Anna, and daughter-in-law Abby.