Glass cross and flame
Image Courtesy of Mary John Dye
May 23, 2023
In the past 5 days, I conducted “final” Charge Conferences for 16 United Methodist Churches that have chosen to disaffiliate. Procedurally, these Charge Conferences—authorized by the DS—are simple: authorizing the formal new name of the new church entity and dissolving the incorporation of those which were incorporated as UMCs.
At the end of the first one, a man I did not know came forward, introduced himself as a local pastor in a nearby community who had attended “to give him some idea of what to expect after his churches vote in June. He thanked me for the graciousness of the session (after all, friends, grace is the UM signature theological lifeline, right?). He said he was certain the churches he served would vote to disaffiliate. With tears in his eyes, he said, “I don’t think what’s going on in my churches is pleasing to the Lord.” All I knew to reply was, “I don’t think anything is more important than pleasing the Lord”.
At the end of the last Charge Conference—ironically scheduled on the day when the Gospel text was John 17, Jesus’ prayer for unity among his disciples—a man from one of the churches came up to speak. He thanked me for the graciousness of the meeting. Then, with tears in his eyes, he asked if I would pray for healing in his church. “I don’t know if we will ever recover from this,”. he said. “The hurt has been so deep.”
Our official settings can be conducted and checked off. But the more important spiritual work of our churches—pleasing Christ and being communities of healing and grace is ongoing work. Ongoing work that is more important than any other work.
I had never met the two men who came up and spoke to me. I do not expect I will see them again. I appreciated that both of them felt grace had been extended. But I walked away from those meetings with a profound sense of sadness that they feel their church(es) have forgotten the supremely important focus of pleasing Jesus (especially John 17) and failing in love to others as He plainly said just before John 17: that we should love one another as He loved us.
We can conduct all the meetings with grace. But if our hearts are not right with God and showing love to others, we are failing in what most important. I have not been able to shake the sadness
And PS: Hats off to all district superintendents who have been presiding over these meetings for months. They deserve our highest respect and praise. I was just pinch-hitting for a few of these and I have a deep sense of sadness that cuts me to the core. I can’t imagine how they feel. Blessings and prayers to them.
Small Mary John
Rev. Dr. Mary John Dye
The Rev. Dr. Mary John Dye is a retired clergy member of the Western North Carolina Annual Conference. This post is republished with permission from her Facebook page. To reproduce this content elsewhere, please contact the author via Facebook.