Bishop Julius C. Trimble is the Resident Bishop of the Indiana Area of the United Methodist Church.

Bishop Trimble has the personal mission to encourage all people with the love of Jesus Christ to rise to their highest potential. It is his commitment to his personal mission that led Bishop Trimble to create the “To Be Encouraged” Podcast along with co-host Rev.Dr. Brad Miller.

Bishop Trimble says, “I am compelled by Jesus to share with you an encouraging word or two about Jesus, theology, the Bible, the pandemic, the environment, racism, voting rights, human sexuality, and the state of the United Methodist Church.”

To Be Encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble is to be published weekly and is available at www.tobeencouraged.com and all the podcast directories.

https://www.inumc.org/bishop/office-of-the-bishop/

This is Episode 093 "Disaffiliation Dilemma Part 1 Discernment and Divorce"

In this episode, Bishop Trimble address the pervasive confusion that has been afflicting United Methodist congregations, surrounding the contentious issue of disaffiliation. We take a closer look at paragraph 2553, the catalyst for many church votes, some marked by a significant lack of clarity, leaving faith communities on the precipice of separation.

Our focus will be on the real and pressing concerns that arise when congregations consider disaffiliation: the tangible effects on church life, ministry, and their ability to influence the community. We confront the emotional and logistical complications that emerge, especially in churches divided by narrowly split votes.

Joining us in this critical conversation are Rev. Tracey Leslie and dedicated layperson Tanya Hess, who bring both expertise and experience to the table. Rev. Leslie will shed light on her role in guiding congregations through these turbulent times, particularly in welcoming and understanding those impacted by church divisions. Tanya Hess presents a heartfelt account of her personal journey with the North Madison United Methodist Church, revealing the hardships and consequences of their disaffiliation debate.

As we explore the difficult terrain of church splits, financial burdens, and the exodus of leadership, our goal is to uncover pathways towards healing and rebuilding. This episode marks the beginning of our exploration into recovery, with the promise of delving deeper in Part 2 (Episode 094 “The Disaffiliation Dilemma: Recover and Hope”.)

We invite you to listen with an open heart as we offer support and guidance to those navigating these troubled waters. Together, we'll seek to reaffirm our commitment to the fundamental mission of the church: to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Please join us for this important conversation here on "To Be Encouraged."

Rev. Tracey Leslie <tracey.leslie@inumc.org>;

Tanya Hess <tarhess@msn.com>

The disaffiliation dilemma in

a Local United Methodist Church.

Part 1, discernment and divorce.

Here on episode 93 of the

To Be Encouraged podcast with bishop

Julius c Trumbull.

You are welcome to be encouraged

with Bishop Julius c Trimble.

Bishop Trimble is on a mission to encourage you

with the love of Jesus Christ so you can

rise to your highest potential.

On to be encouraged, Bishop Treble speaks to a

discouraged world with a good word

on the pandemic, racism, the environment,

human sexuality, and the state of the church with

a focus on centering your life on

the love of Jesus Christ. Has there ever

been a more needed time for an encouraging

word to our world? This is

your time to rise to your greatest potential

and to be encouraged with Bishop Julius

c Trimble. Hello, good people, and

we welcome you to the to be encouraged

podcast with Bishop Julius C.

This is the podcast where we look to offer an encouraging

word to an often discouraged

world. I'm your cohost, reverend doctor Brad

Miller. And here in episode 93, we have

part 1 of a 2 part series dealing with one of the more

discouraging aspects of the current state of the United Methodist

Church, the disaffiliation dilemma,

particularly as it impacts a local

United Methodist church. In today's episode,

we're gonna be talking to a United Methodist staff

person who, among other things in her portfolio, deals

with discernment and disaffiliation issues in

local churches along with the healing and wholeness aspects as

well, as well as devoted local United

Methodist layperson who's a part of that church. We're gonna

get granular today as we discover as we discuss

what happens in the disaffiliation discussion

through the discernment process, through the voting process about whether

to disaffiliate or not. So today's

topic is gonna be part 1, discernment and divorce,

and this is episode 93. And we'll follow it up on

episode 2, episode number part 2 of this episode, which is

episode 94. We'll talk about recovery and hope for

the future of a local United Methodist Church.

We are incredibly privileged to have a couple people been

involved with the dynamic that's happening in many of our

United Methodist churches right now. The very painful

process of discerning whether you're going to have a vote to do

disaffiliate or not, the inner workings of the church

administratively and interpersonally, friendships,

family relationships, mission events, community

events, all these things which are impacted in the mission and ministry of a local

church, which is going through the the process

of deciding whether to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church or not.

So we have with us as our guest, today with myself and

Bishop Trumbull, Tracy Leslie, who's the C

director of innovation, engagement and development

of the Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church. And

she was intimately involved with one of the local United

Methodist Church in the churches in the Indiana conference,

the North Madison United Methodist Church in Madison, Indiana.

And we're very pleased to have one of the very devoted and dedicated

laypersons from the North Madison United Methodist

Church, Tanya Hess. In this episode

of To Be Encouraged, it is being done in,

narrative or narration style. So I just wanted to say a word about what

you'll be hearing here, today. I, inter I, Brad

Miller, interviewed C, and later on

was able to, offer his insights into the answers

that Tracy and Tanya gave to us. So

you'll hear, myself setting up the question, the

setting up the the question, and then either Tanya or C,

both of them commenting on the question at

hand, and then Bishop, Bishop Trimble commenting

on the statements that that they make. I think you'll get the hang of it,

and it's a good it's a good thing. I hope that you'll listen carefully to

this episode and to the follow-up episode, episode 94,

where we talk about the next steps. It may very well

be applicable to your church if you're a local church pastor or a

local church layperson who's having these discussions as well. I

think you're gonna find this incredibly helpful. And, again, a word of thanks for people

who are sharing out of some painful experiences meant to

be helpful to you and indeed encouraging

to local churches, which are choosing to have the hard

conversations around the, basically, divorce

conversation regarding disaffiliation in their

church. So, again, a big thanks to Tracy Leslie

and to Tanya Hess. Let's join the conversation that

I had with them and the comments from from Bishop

Julius Trimble here on the to be encouraged podcast with Bishop Julius

c Trimble.

Let's begin by having a conversation with reverend

Tracy Leslie, the associate director of innovation engagement

development, Indiana Conference United Methodist Church, to understand a

little more clearly what her role is and

her connection between the conference staff and

leadership in terms of serving and resourcing

a church and the pastor and the lay persons

of a church that's having the conversation

around disaffiliation and how her

role can serve people going through this

very tough Trimble. Significant amount of

the work that I do, it's around what are called lost congregations,

And those are congregations that take training

to, to learn how to better welcome

folks who have experienced that pain and and that

hurt from a congregation that disaffiliated

or with even just divisive around this issue.

And so I do train with congregations to help them

the dynamics of that and how to welcome well.

Well, I think there's nothing more critical than helping

congregations understand how to welcome. My wife and I, we have an

opportunity to visit congregations. And often, we

we rate ourselves higher than we should in terms of our capacity

to welcome strangers, people who are not already part of what I call

the the collective community that we call church.

So Tracy's leadership in this role, particularly at this

particular junction, juncture in history,

is is critical for the Indiana Conference. And, hopefully, we'll

be setting some examples that best practices that can be

used by other conferences as well. We don't just wake up

knowing, I think, how, Brad, how to welcome others. I think that's

something that comes with with some collective training and

learning together and practicing. So this is something we

think is a good investment for us at this particular time, not just

because of disaffiliation, just be but because there are so many people

in Indiana that don't have a place to call their spiritual

home, their church.

In a local United Methodist Church, any conversation around

disaffiliation begins with some

conversations in the hallways, in the parking lots, and other places

about dissatisfaction. Such as the

case at the North Madison United Methodist Church in Madison,

Indiana, And dedicated layperson Tanya

Hess begins to unpack for us and sort out in our

conversation some of the background and some of the

history behind the conversation which led to

a eventual vote on disaffiliation at the North

Madison United Methodist Church. Let's hear Tanya's story.

Sure. It was probably back in September of

2022. Our administration at the

church had decided to enter into that period of discernment.

And there were disaffiliation talks. There were many

committee meetings, town hall meetings,

surveys, question, answer sessions. And as the

months progressed, I just kept getting very

discouraged. And, throughout these years, even though I haven't

lived back home for many years, I kept in touch with a lot of my

former youth group members or adults that were mentors at the church

or the nearby United Methodist churches. And kind of in a

large, group text, I had a friend reply

and said that, you know, you need to talk to somebody. And it was her

United Methodist Church pastor and it was Pastor C who was

in Lafayette at the time with the Trinity. And so I

reached out to Tracy because, we're a connectional church. I knew she

would help me and she answered every

text, every phone call, email and with,

a lot of factual information and encouragement.

And, with our disaffiliation, I thought

there was a lot of confusion, excuse me, with our disaffiliation talks, I

felt there was a lot of confusion, not a lot of forthright

information coming to our congregation. And,

I just wanted to, you know, speak up and reach out and have

my questions answered, and Tracy was very,

very helpful with that. So, we had a, leading up to

in April. It was, April 17th was our disaffiliation

votes or vote to if you were gonna stay United Methodist or if we were

gonna disaffiliate from the the denomination.

And it turned out to be a very, very close vote and as a

result, we we had lost between a half or 2

thirds of our members. And, of course, Tracy was

there after that and, with her new role and

has has helped with our rebuilding process. You

said There's a lot of Tanias out there. And, she said

2 things that really touched my heart, and and I I

feel for Tanya because I know she's not alone. She said, one, she's

been discouraged. This affiliation and even the

process of, quote, unquote, Brad, discernment

can be this this discouraging because you're discerning

not about what god's will is for us to grow the church

or a God's will for us to our next mission focus, but

you're actually asking people who are part of the body of Christ in

a congregation to discern whether or not we want to divorce

the United Methodist denomination. So that in and of itself,

I know it's gotta be. It was discouraging for me, and I was not living

it out as a member of a local congregation or a pastor of a

local congregation, but as a bishop. The other thing she said, which

I I also found to be encouraging, and that was she

said and she said it matter of factly as as I C it and

you say it. She said, we are a connectional church. She

didn't use it as a disparaging word or a curse word. She

said, we are a connectional church. So I reached out to

get help. There's so many people who love Jesus and are United Methodist,

but don't understand that and maybe don't have a person to

call. That's the reason we've been get embarked on this

commitment and this journey of reaching out to person who really wanna

focus on the mission of being United Methodist and making disciples.

We're not trying to bad mouth people that have made a decision to leave,

but we think we need to really help people experience a

period, a long period, maybe, of healing

so that we can those of us who wanna be United Methodists and continue to

focus on the cross and flame can really

experience help from the connectional church. And

that's the reason that Tracy's in her role, but it's not her job

alone. It's all of our all of our responsibility to help

people understand that we have a commitment to still

make disciples of Jesus Christ, transform the world, and do it

with healthy congregations. And some of our congregations have been

literally decimated because of the discernment and disaffiliation

process. In a local United

Methodist Church, conversations around dissatisfaction

eventually lead to conversations in meetings and

eventually official process of discernment

about whether a vote is to be taken regarding disaffiliation

or not. In this part of our conversation, Tanya

has goes a little deeper about what eventually led to

a vote on disaffiliation taking place at

Madison North United Methodist Church and some of the pain and some of

the drama and some of the circumstances surrounding that. It's

worth a listen to understand a little bit about the

details of this process and some of the painful

points and some of the important points which have to be

addressed for a church that's considering disaffiliation.

It It was decided to, to have the

vote. And I think probably

both sides, because now our church has been,

I think what was so painful is those months you were watching

your church, you know, family basically split

and, and you didn't know how it was going to go down. So I'm going

to say our church was on both sides. There were, we had people on both

sides of the issue. And so you're, you're watching our, we're

supposed to be in unity with each other and you're watching

your church divide, so that was what was so painful. And I think

both sides were shocked as, you know, you could you could

hear a a pin drop really in the sanctuaries where we held the

vote. And when it was decided that our church would

remain United Methodist, where the one side who who wanted

us to leave were for sure that they were going to, you

know, get the church and the church property. And then those of

us who wanted to remain United Methodist with their our

church, our church had just celebrated that year, its

175th birthday as Commissioned Methodist

Church. So this church has a lot of history and heritage.

And so to, you know, to sit in the pews with those who

decided to, you know, kind of be dismissive of that was very

painful. And so when it came down to the votes, I think

everyone was just shocked in in in the room.

Wow. There there there's nothing, there's no

getting around that. Just to hear that as people

describe their experience is palpable. It's it's

it's, you know, people were experienced a visceral experience of,

you know, you can hear a pin drop because where Jesus

prays in John 17 that we all might be 1, he prays

not just for the disciples, not just for those who who

were 1st century Christians, but he prays for the church

today. So it's almost counterintuitive. We're not

our DNA is one of my colleague Bishop says, we weren't built to

be, to be divided. We were built

to really come around for congregations to be united.

So it the discernment process brought drama. The

disaffiliation brought drama. And when congregations actually came

to the point of voting, there there was there was drama. It was

it's a no win situation, no matter which way the vote goes,

particularly when it's not a significant majority. Either

as a significant majority of people who've discerned to

stay or discerned that they want to leave. And here in the story of

a 100 and 75th anniversary, I've preached at many of

the churches that have experienced a 175

years of ministry since I've been here for 7 plus years

as the president bishop of Indiana. I know what it is to celebrate

with churches that have celebrated a 150 years, a 175

years. And that's how many years they've been connected

to the Methodist movement. So for churches to discern,

to stay, or discern to leave and then lose

members as a result of that is very, very painful.

Again, which is the reason that we really need to come around each come

alongside each other, for a long season of prayer

and and and create places where we can welcome folks

who may wanna come back. I think there are people who may wanna come back

to the United Methodist congregations that maybe they've decided to

leave. When the

United Methodist Church is going through the disaffiliation

dilemma discussion, something that often happens

is a sense of confusion

and lack of clarity about process, about

information. In this part of the conversation that we

were able to have, with Tanya and with Leslie,

we explore a little bit about this matter, about

how important it is to be very clear about the discipline, about to be very

clear about process, and be very clear about everybody to understand

because confusion becomes a real

consistent problem. So Tanya,

Leslie speak to this, and Bishop Trimble responds to

the matter of confusion during the disaffiliation

dilemma conversation. Yes. So we were,

deciding to the administration had decide to

discern over the paragraph 2553 and

we had a lot of talks of what that meant

and, we had members, you know, answer

surveys, but, you know, sometimes the questions may have not

been the right questions for our congregation. And

they, proceeded with the discernment and the disaffiliation

talks based on, so far, like 80% of the congregation

said that they wanted to, you know, have the vote. That

did not mean that 80% of the congregation wanted to

leave the denomination. It's just that they wanted to have the vote

so that they would have that say on how they they wanna proceed

with the church. And there were a lot of talks of

what what we could be as a church if we weren't United

Methodist and, I just felt some members

were just, confused and with what was being presented to

them. One of the consistent themes during this

process, and I've talked with other bishops who experienced one of the

consistent themes has been confusion, confusion about

what United Methodist believe or don't believe, confusion about

what happens if you vote to this affiliate or not, even

confusion about what paragraph 2553 really said

or really meant. So some congregations were making a

determination to vote on something that they really weren't clearly

that wasn't clearly understood, which I think it, to

me, is cause not to have a vote, but maybe to remain United

Methodist and wait for general conference or wait for a period of

time of discernment where you do have a clear understanding of what

it means. It's also a clarion call for us to

double down on our commitment to teach what United Methodist actually

believe. What is Wesleyan theology? What does it mean to

live in a church that that believes in a heavy dosage of

grace, understanding grace and practical theology

and social witness and a commitment to prayer,

a commitment to preaching from the scriptures that also

applies to our everyday lives. So I think

there's a great common theme that the church has

experienced, and that has been a certain level of confusion about

what this really meant to vote, to disaffiliate.

Some some congregations really focus on owning their

own property, when in fact, we all all

churches really own their own property and trust. So it's not a

that's not really something to me that reaches the level of one would

want to necessarily disaffiliate for.

So this is something that, you know, we're gonna be living with for for quite

a while, and I think some of the dis some of the disinformation

has almost been codified or concretized in the

minds of people in such a way that it that time may

not necessarily heal all

wounds. One of the dilemmas of the disaffiliation

dilemma conversation is

trying to get your head around the impact of

the results of a vote for disaffiliation,

whether it be to remain a United Methodist Church or to disaffiliate,

it has tremendous impact on the life and

ministry and influence of the church and the community.

In this part of the conversation, reverend Tracy Leslie speaks to

the impact that it has and to what can begin the

the process of sorting things out and what can be done next.

And Bishop Trimble then responds to this, and we began to shift

the conversation a little bit towards understanding the

impact of a disaffiliation vote and then

what's next. Yeah. These are the churches

that I, at least in my role, are most concerned about.

Because, you know, there are churches where the vote was not even

close. And and so once the people that wanted to

disaffiliate, you know, a lot of times they just left and and

things kind of con went back to normal. Right?

I mean, not that there wasn't pain in that, but, you know, but

here in in churches like North Madison and other places that

I'm aware of where the votes were really close,

yeah, oftentimes, lot of people

are lost, even if the vote doesn't pass, because as we've

said, you need to hit not, not 51%, but

66%. And, and so that's

that's very difficult. Yeah. That's

an understatement to say it's very difficult, and and it has been very

difficult. And as a bishop, it pains me to know

that congregations now have been wounded in such a way that

carrying on their ministry has been handicapped. You know, how do you

pay for a full time clergy person if you have a full

time clergy person? And, you know, 2 thirds or

40% or 50% of your giving is no longer

committed to supporting the church with their prayers, their presence,

their tithes, and their witness. And so we are really

discerning how we can best come alongside as an annual

conference and also best reach work. Our superintendents

are really paying attention to those congregations,

not not adding undue expectations upon

that have lost some of their leader key leadership as well

as their key financial support. We pray that we we serve a

mighty good God and a gracious God who can do anything

but fail. So we are expecting the congregations

will rebound to a certain degree and

also continue to extend their witness in such a way

that people that don't have a church may find a welcome place in many of

our congregations across the state of Indiana.

We're going to conclude

this first part of our conversation around

the disaffiliation dilemma in 1

local United Methodist Church, North Madison, UMC in Madison,

Indiana. I hope you benefited

from the conversation that we had around this conversation

in part 1, particularly about discernment and

divorce. I think the, the metaphor is appropriate.

We talk about this decision whether to separate from the

United Methodist Church or to remain a part of the United Methodist

Church. It's a painful decision. I know that you heard

that in the conversation that Tanya Tanya has

had to the devoted layperson from Madison North. We

thank her so much for being a part of our conversation as well as

reverend Tracy Leslie. And I think you also heard how

bishop Trimble really speaks poignantly to the situation

at hand in this particular United Methodist Church, which

certainly speaks to the to the, drama and

the trauma that takes place. It has taken place and continues to

take place in many United Methodist churches.

You gotta go through the divorce in this process,

unfortunately, in order to deal with the ramifications of

ministry moving forward. I hope that you'll tune in for our

part 2 of this series, our spec part 2, which is episode

94. We're gonna talk about recovery and hope

moving forward. If you allow me an analogy, divorce

recovery and moving forward. And we're gonna talk particularly

about one important ministry

that Madison North United Methodist Church had in

their local community, which was impacted dramatically by this

decision about the disaffiliation dilemma. I think you're

gonna find it very applicable to situations and missions and

ministries and people in your local United

Methodist Church. So if you're a local United Methodist Church

pastor or devoted layperson or someone who cares about doing

mission and making an impact in the world, then, please

share this this episode of To Be

Encouraged, which we kinda understand the problem and try

to sort out the actual granular details as it

were of the conversation around disaffiliation

and the dilemma it opposes. But our next episode, we're gonna talk about next

steps, about recovery and hope moving

forward. Because here at the to be encouraged podcast, we're all

about understanding and dealing with the real

life issues that face the United Methodist Church.

Sometimes they're really delightful and wonderful, and sometimes,

they're really, really tough, like this discussion around

around discernment issues and disaffiliation. This

is as good a time as any to to be reminded that the mission

of The United Methodist Church is to make disciples of

Jesus Christ for the transformation of the

world, and the purpose of the To Be Encouraged podcast

with Bishop Julius c Trimble is to offer

an encouraging word to an often discouraged

world. We hope you join us next time here on To

Be Encouraged. Until then, I am reverend doctor

Brad Miller for Bishop Julius c Trimble,

encouraging you to always do all the good

that you can.

Consider yourself encouraged

and appreciated for listening to be

encouraged with Bishop Julius c Trimble.

Now please share the blessing and encourage others in your

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be encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble, and never forget,

God loves you, and there's nothing you can do about

it.