Indiana Area Bishop Julius Trimble joins Rev. Dr. Brad Miller on the recurring Be Encouraged segment on the United Methodist People Podcast. In Episode 50 the conversation centers around Leadership in a time of ambiguity in the United Methodist Church.

Bishop and Brad talk through the present state of affairs in the United Methodist Church in November of 2021 with the church still many months away from General Conference 2022 when some decisions may be made regarding addressing the conflict in the church over matters of human sexuality.

Bishop shares his experiences in The Council of Bishops and how there is a concerted emphasis among the episcopacy to embrace this defining time in our church in a more loving way.

A conversation was also had about how local church lay leaders and pastors can approach dramatic decisions around such matters as disaffiliation with a season of prayer and considering the impact such decisions would have on those in our local churches who would be excluded by the decisions made.

Be encouraged with Bishop Trimble is a regular segment on The United Methodist People Podcast with Rev. Dr. Brad Miller.

In January 2022 Bishop Julius Trimble will be launching his very own podcast "Be Encouraged" with Bishop Julius Trimble emphasizing his call to be a voice of encouragement to the church.

The purpose of The United Methodist People Podcast is to strengthen the connection in the United Methodist Church through conversation and commentary and is published by Rev. Dr. Brad Miller an Elder in the Indiana Annual Conference.

https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/

Back on be encouraged with Bishop Julius

Trumbull, where we look at issues facing the United

Methodist Church. And of course, it's an ongoing conversation

about the state of the church. And perhaps as we are within a

year of the General Conference happening and 22, hopefully

it'll happen. Maybe it's time to kind of get an assessment of

where we stand at Bishop. I know you've been meeting with the

Council of Bishops and the time period that we're speaking,

where do we stand right now, we've been in this kind of this

time of stagnancy for quite a while now and the pressure is

building, I can feel it, give me your state of church, right,

where there's good news. And the good

news is that the church is alive and well, facing challenges, in

spite of the fact that we have been impacted globally, by a

first ever, pandemic, that is resulted in millions of lives

being lost, we just recently crossed 750,000, lives laws in

the United States, Lord have mercy. So the church is still

alive and bred, as you know, many of our churches have not

been able to meet in person for worship. And yet, when we

adapted that now, many most of us are back in worship in person

worship, somewhere in mask and still have certain protocols.

But we've actually many places across the globe increased our

reach because of online platforms, to people that had

previously not been attending church, and maybe some of those

persons never will enter into our church buildings. So the

good news is that churches alive the gospel is still being

proclaimed. People are still answering the call the ministry,

and addressing the Matthew 25 mandate to feed the hungry,

clothe the naked and visit those who are in prison. The tough

news is that we're still in this long protracted state, in the

United Methodist Church, with division around human sexuality,

the freedom of pastors to perform same gender weddings,

and persons being accepted for a nation who may be part of the

LGBTQ community. So that that has not been resolved. But the

state of the church, I would say is, we are still here, we still

have our main thing, which is to make disciples of Jesus Christ,

for the transformation of the world. But as I said, just

recently, our main thing is not our only thing. There are many

other things that that are facing us as well.

One of the things I noticed an article came out of

the United Methodist news. The headline was Bishop urge to

embrace a more loving way. And it quotes Bishop Cynthia Fierro

Harvey, among others who've spoken to this issue. I like for

you to speak to it as well, when we have an article that says

heirs to embrace a more loving way that cutting applies that

maybe not everyone's been so loving. What do you think that

means, however, things go as we have some division, hopefully we

killed have diversion. You know, what, what can we do to be more

loving, and somehow navigate this process in a way that we

can have differences but not be destructive? I

think that I think the gospel is

mandating us to demonstrate a more loving way. We have, I

think exercise over the recent years. Way too much vitriol, not

just on social media, but even in places where we had

opportunity to have what we thought would be conversations,

turn into heated debates. I think a more loving way is for

me to say, you and I may not agree bread, but you are a child

of God and I have no other option other than to treat you

and to listen, treat you as a child of God. Listen to your

story. And listen for how God might speak to me through your

story. As opposed to listening, just waiting to debate you about

how you are wrong about the Bible. Or you wrong about your

position. Or and I am so right. We we have I think fallen in

love with being right more than we have fallen in love with

Jesus. And so I think the more we fall in love with Jesus we

the more apt we are to be loving demonstrate a more loving way of

being in community

that is so so profound supposedly you're we're

all walking along the same path together and sometimes we may

not feel that we are but we are so I'd be really interested in

maybe this would be good for our listeners here United Methodist

people podcast to hear but how did things go in the among the

conversations among the bishops around all this when you get

together the county bishops what are some of the conversations

like about, for instance? How's it going in my annual conference

compared to your annual conference or these difficult

churches are the difficult circumstances? Are people

getting along in the Council of Bishops? Or is there a clashes

going on there? What can we what is the council bishops doing to

be helpful to into local churches? Could I really think a

lot of local churches are looking for some sort of

guidance from someplace about how to navigate all this? And

I'm just going to start with the Council of Bishops because

that's where you're at. And you've been meeting with

I think the Council of Bishops we're,

we're certainly demonstrate an abundance of Christian

politeness. But there are times which we recognize that we don't

all we don't all agree in the Council of Bishops when you have

over 100 bishops from across the globe, not just the United

States, but from many, many other places as well. We cover

the spectrum of what people would consider sitter the

theological extremes and as well as centrist and progressives and

liberals and traditionalists. But all of us demonstrate an

attempt to lead in such a way as we are faithful to our not only

our ordination vows as elders, but our consecration vows as

bishops. What do I mean by that? Promoting the unity of the

church means that I'm a bishop in a state where I have people

who are all across the theological spectrum. And for me

to lead and to demonstrate leadership, I have to do it in

such a way. And I think this is what we share in the Council of

Bishops. How do we lead amidst ambiguity? How do we lead when

there is a need for lament so much has been so much how do we

lead when there's exhaustion? Bread? Do you know what I mean?

When there's people are exhausted? Absolutely. Because

of life because, and pastors are, so this is part of what we

talk about. And this is one of the challenge.

The term I hear a lot about from other pastors and

even myself is I'm just so weary. I'm just so weary,

weary. And yes, that is, that is that

is that is a real, that's a real, that's real, and bishops

are real. And no bishops are weary. So part of part of what

we do in the Council of Bishops is to, is to do what we do on

this podcast, is to encourage people encourage each other and

recognize that okay, my story may be different than your

story. And my my bent on a particular issue, whether it's

climate stewardship, or LGBTQ questions, may be different than

yours, but am I demonstrating what we talked about earlier, a

loving way of relating to those people who are claimed to be my

sisters and brothers. in ministry, Christ prayer for the

for our unity is right in the Gospel of John the 17th chapter.

He wasn't unclear about that bread, you know, my pray for

pray for you, the disciples, I pray for the world. And I pray

for those who will, who will receive the gospel. So Christ

prayer for unity was for us today. And obviously, this made

this doesn't mean they're not changes, or they're not

divisions, we've got multiple denominations already did exist,

multiple ways in which people are expressed the following of

Christ. But I think the Unity really has to do with a Wesleyan

Wesleyan position that we need not all think alike. In order

for us to live a life

that is profound, that's awesome. Well, let's take

that sentiment, Bishop that you have in the Council of Bishops

and the conversation you and I are having. And let's just take

it into that local church boardroom where the Leadership

Council or the administrative council or any group is meeting

and they're having these conversations, and perhaps in

some of those conversations, they're talking about, you know,

how to somehow disaffiliate or anything else along that line or

about use of land and money and all that kind of stuff. How can

we give some guidance or leadership to that lay person

who's leading that group particularly or that local

pastor, to help to navigate some of this stuff when there is

intense feelings in that local church as well, that are many

different sides of the spectrum? Give us some guidance for that

local church leadership?

Well, I would say that churches should

not make decisions that they've not had a chance to sit with,

for for a period of time. Has there been a season of prayer?

Or did we did we receive information about these are

options and next week, we want to have a charge conference and

have the superintendent preside over charge conference to make a

decision? Have we asked the question? Do we really want to

be in a church where we all agree on all things related to

scripture or related to the way in which decisions are made or

can we live in a church where they area's diversity of

thought, can we live in a church where we are trusting a bishop

and cabinet, to assign us a pastor who is suitable for our

community and for our context. So that is one of the things

that distinguishes United Methodism from other independent

churches is that we count on our relationship with others. And we

expect to be a part of a church where we don't have to all think

alike to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. And not only our

personal salvation, personal Savior, but indeed our community

savior.

That's awesome. I'd love the love, love your thought

about having a season of prayer and contemplation, before you

make a literally dramatic life changing decisions. And we

don't always ask the question, when we

make a decision, who are we leaving behind? We've, we've had

to deal with this already. Because we've had churches, and

we realize, even if you vote, say 70%, voted to leave or 70%

voted to stay. When we make a decision like that, we're often

voting to leave somebody behind sometime, they're, they're left

behind quietly. They don't they don't raise their voice.

Sometimes we're leaving behind persons who have grandchildren

or children who are gay. Sometimes we're leaving to have

persons who feel like their, their traditional views have

been squashed. And they can't be honest. Because everybody is

sounding like they are progressive in their

interpretation of the scriptures. So I think we really

should be humble in our decisions around this. And

having said that, I think there's no reason for us to

count people who leave as our enemies.

Even these conversations that we're talking

to divisive conversations do have implications for how

effective or not we are making disciples of Jesus Christ for

the transformation of the world. Let's bring us around Bishop

just I always like to you started our conversation here

about there's good news to share. But let's talk now about

encouraging news moving forward. And let's have a prayer about

the future of the church, which is going to be an ongoing

conversation that you and I are going to have continually. But

give us a moment right now. What's encouraging, let's pray

about it.

I think what's encouraging right now is

that the message you you will hear consistently, over these

next coming weeks from the Council of Bishops of The United

Methodist Church, is a message that there's a place for

everyone in the ongoing the current and the ongoing United

Methodist Church. This is not to disparage anyone, we haven't had

a general conference. So there hasn't been any formal

separation. We've had some churches who have made decisions

to disaffiliate. And we don't count these as our enemies. But

we do say that there is a place for everyone in the United

Methodist Church. That's a consistent message you're going

to hear, I think, over the weeks, from the Council of

Bishops, that we are a church that is confident of what God

has done in Christ Jesus for all of humankind. We are committed

to personal and social salvation. We are courageous in

our work to dismantle racism, tribalism, colonialism, and

we're not operating from a standpoint of scarcity. The

church bread has been so generous in supporting our local

churches, that tells me that we are very much committed to our

mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the

transformation of the world. My discipleship is tied to my

willingness to stick together in good times and tough times. And

so that's great news. And good news of the gospel. That is,

that is good news and encouraging word and, and

once you let's pray for it, let's pray about this. Do you

mind praying for this ongoing conversation?

Oh, God, we just ask that you. You pour

your spirit Oh God in the narrative of The United

Methodist Church. Let our story be your story told through us.

Oh, God, we're not trying to pit sister against sister or brother

against brother. Oh God. We're asking that you use us in this

pivotal moment in history. They are people hungry, spiritually

hungry, and physically hungry. Use your church to bring food,

the fresh bread of life the fresh bread of hope, the fresh

bread of salvation in Jesus Christ. Oh God, we pray that we

not count anybody out. But we count all persons in bless us.

Oh God, not that we always know the way but you are the way and

we ask you Oh God in Jesus name to lead us and guide us Amen

Amen our guest today on the United Methodist

people podcast being encouraged with Bishop Julius tremble