I saw your letter on the United Methodist Clergy page. I tried to respond but was unable. I was a UMC pastor drummed out of ministry and forced to retire in 2007. I wanted to say what you said. But I went quietly. The D.S's sure were surprised when I showed up at WOC for my last walk across the stage! Anyway- The church I attend joined the Global Methodist in January! I praise God every day! Get on the GMC FB page. Apply for membership. Your ministry is needed. Go to the Global Methodist Church website for information.
Chin up. Happy you are being ordained. This process has been palatable only when i acknowledged my grief. I am now accepting this loss and healing emotionally daily.
I appreciate your podcast. It is truly helping to connect many of us process everything here in North Georgia. There is a narrative that happens regularly in the congregation I serve as pastor in charge here in NGUMC.
Given that you have claimed to be open to honeat conversation, I expected better from you as you left. You have a quite enough Facebook group with the denomination, even while you know that social media posts from people hiding behind keyboards are never representative. We are not an enemies. We don't need to be enemies. I wish you well. I'm disappointed by the way you chose to leave.
I don't really consider you an enemy, David. I think you're a centrist/liberal who is going to be surprised and dismayed at the tsunami of activists and SJWs that are going to overwhelm the UMC. I can't pretend that I don't have enemies in UMC leadership, though. Many who hate me and people like me. I addressed them as I left, asking them to prove me wrong. The response it has gotten is pretty revealing. It seems to me that there is a large number of hate-filled folks who are looking to fight. I'd be concerned about them if I were you. If you'd rather fault me for publicly leaving, that's your prerogative.
Respectfully, you announced your exit from the group and the denomination and castigated the entire group on your way out. I'm not saying you personally are self-righteous; your post absolutely was, though. You will always find people on social media who are ready to fight, just like I have found plenty of people who have called me a false teacher, heretic, and "agent of the Devil." Jeffrey, you just gave the denomination the metaphorical finger and then rhetorically asked them to be nice to others who believe like you. I don't understand how you can't see this.
"If you'd rather fault me for publicly leaving." No. This is not an either/or. Your post was wrong. It was not speaking the truth in love, it was just being mean. And it was wrong when people were mean to you. You cannot criticize people for what you then immediately do yourself.
I took a good deal of time and energy to provide a portrait of what I as a member of a group within the UMC experienced at the hands of a certain segment. I didn't resort to name-calling. I spoke to specific concerns about ascendant ideology and how it is that persons are treated and portrayed who do not observe far left dogma. This is something many other voices are warning about, including centrists. If folks like me don't speak, then people get to pretend that we left because we're just hateful bigots, when the truth is rather that people have treated us spitefully. Within the UMC group, that was in large part because the administrator intentionally facilitated and provoked such speech, and often. In the case of the denomination, because our covenant was left unprotected by the overseers.
In a dysfunctional family, the most hated member is the one who refuses to participate in the dysfunction and calls it out for what it is. Rather than deal with the dysfunction, the family simply bad-mouths the one who left. It's one thing if I pronounced a curse (ex. I hope you guys crash and burn) or insulted the intentions of those who chased me away (ex. y'all are just evil). But I offered blessing "I hope you succeed in your goal now that I'm gone" and acknowledged good intentions "I know you see yourself as being on the side of the angels." The fact that so many chose to see this as a middle finger rather than something approximating Jacob's departure from Laban, which is what I intentionally referenced, is a problem for that crew.
If you're saying that it just isn't appropriate to tell a group why I'm leaving because it makes them look bad, well, I guess I just disagree. I don't know how groups course correct if they don't have to consider the options of those who refuse the groupthink. Most conservatives really believe that everyone remaining in the UMC are just brainwashed cultist leftists. They just quietly leave because they have given up on the folks left behind. But I think there are some reasonable people inheriting the psUMC who can wake up and see that things are going off the rails. I actually think that'll happen for you sometime soon, because I don't think you're one of the crazy ones. But if folks like me don't continue to speak up, and loudly, then folks will really just think that the UMC declined because of market forces and bigots who left, and that does a disservice to everyone.
If someone publicly leaves my church and says it is because we are unfriendly, we are going to make a point to be extra friendly in the immediate aftermath. The fact that I left because folks in that group are nasty, and then the IMMEDIATE response is to be nasty...that says something about a parasitic endemic compulsion, man. That's not on me. That's like blaming the MRI for the cancer diagnosis. You can deny that it shows what it shows. I guess you're going to deny what I think I've shown because in any group there are bound to be a few bad apples. But you know what? A few bad apples ruin the bunch if you can't remove them. The bad apples are inheriting the psUMC because they wouldn't leave and the leadership wouldn't make them.
Of course, I could be wrong. I will keep watching. I'll admit it if in 10 years the UMC is a functional body, no longer railing against its own members. But in the meantime, it's like I saw some faulty circuitry right next to some wood chips, folks didn't like me pointing it out, I finally left because it was a disaster waiting to happen, and folks are getting mad at me for it. I don't think it's a loving thing to say nothing while I leave. Whether or not people subjectively experience what I've said as love doesn't matter very much to me. I just care how God sees it, as I made clear in my post. But selfishly, I do hope that someday you do see that my warning was issued in love.
Well said. The truth is the truth. There is not your truth and my truth. Just as the over concern about "being on the right side of history" should instead be "the right side of Jesus" which is where I prefer to be.
I saw your letter on the United Methodist Clergy page. I tried to respond but was unable. I was a UMC pastor drummed out of ministry and forced to retire in 2007. I wanted to say what you said. But I went quietly. The D.S's sure were surprised when I showed up at WOC for my last walk across the stage! Anyway- The church I attend joined the Global Methodist in January! I praise God every day! Get on the GMC FB page. Apply for membership. Your ministry is needed. Go to the Global Methodist Church website for information.
I actually serve on the TCAT for my area. I'm being ordained this Saturday. My churches are currently in discernment about affiliation.
God's blessings on you as your church transitions into a healthier connection.
Chin up. Happy you are being ordained. This process has been palatable only when i acknowledged my grief. I am now accepting this loss and healing emotionally daily.
I appreciate your podcast. It is truly helping to connect many of us process everything here in North Georgia. There is a narrative that happens regularly in the congregation I serve as pastor in charge here in NGUMC.
Keep it up.
Given that you have claimed to be open to honeat conversation, I expected better from you as you left. You have a quite enough Facebook group with the denomination, even while you know that social media posts from people hiding behind keyboards are never representative. We are not an enemies. We don't need to be enemies. I wish you well. I'm disappointed by the way you chose to leave.
I don't really consider you an enemy, David. I think you're a centrist/liberal who is going to be surprised and dismayed at the tsunami of activists and SJWs that are going to overwhelm the UMC. I can't pretend that I don't have enemies in UMC leadership, though. Many who hate me and people like me. I addressed them as I left, asking them to prove me wrong. The response it has gotten is pretty revealing. It seems to me that there is a large number of hate-filled folks who are looking to fight. I'd be concerned about them if I were you. If you'd rather fault me for publicly leaving, that's your prerogative.
Respectfully, you announced your exit from the group and the denomination and castigated the entire group on your way out. I'm not saying you personally are self-righteous; your post absolutely was, though. You will always find people on social media who are ready to fight, just like I have found plenty of people who have called me a false teacher, heretic, and "agent of the Devil." Jeffrey, you just gave the denomination the metaphorical finger and then rhetorically asked them to be nice to others who believe like you. I don't understand how you can't see this.
"If you'd rather fault me for publicly leaving." No. This is not an either/or. Your post was wrong. It was not speaking the truth in love, it was just being mean. And it was wrong when people were mean to you. You cannot criticize people for what you then immediately do yourself.
I took a good deal of time and energy to provide a portrait of what I as a member of a group within the UMC experienced at the hands of a certain segment. I didn't resort to name-calling. I spoke to specific concerns about ascendant ideology and how it is that persons are treated and portrayed who do not observe far left dogma. This is something many other voices are warning about, including centrists. If folks like me don't speak, then people get to pretend that we left because we're just hateful bigots, when the truth is rather that people have treated us spitefully. Within the UMC group, that was in large part because the administrator intentionally facilitated and provoked such speech, and often. In the case of the denomination, because our covenant was left unprotected by the overseers.
In a dysfunctional family, the most hated member is the one who refuses to participate in the dysfunction and calls it out for what it is. Rather than deal with the dysfunction, the family simply bad-mouths the one who left. It's one thing if I pronounced a curse (ex. I hope you guys crash and burn) or insulted the intentions of those who chased me away (ex. y'all are just evil). But I offered blessing "I hope you succeed in your goal now that I'm gone" and acknowledged good intentions "I know you see yourself as being on the side of the angels." The fact that so many chose to see this as a middle finger rather than something approximating Jacob's departure from Laban, which is what I intentionally referenced, is a problem for that crew.
If you're saying that it just isn't appropriate to tell a group why I'm leaving because it makes them look bad, well, I guess I just disagree. I don't know how groups course correct if they don't have to consider the options of those who refuse the groupthink. Most conservatives really believe that everyone remaining in the UMC are just brainwashed cultist leftists. They just quietly leave because they have given up on the folks left behind. But I think there are some reasonable people inheriting the psUMC who can wake up and see that things are going off the rails. I actually think that'll happen for you sometime soon, because I don't think you're one of the crazy ones. But if folks like me don't continue to speak up, and loudly, then folks will really just think that the UMC declined because of market forces and bigots who left, and that does a disservice to everyone.
If someone publicly leaves my church and says it is because we are unfriendly, we are going to make a point to be extra friendly in the immediate aftermath. The fact that I left because folks in that group are nasty, and then the IMMEDIATE response is to be nasty...that says something about a parasitic endemic compulsion, man. That's not on me. That's like blaming the MRI for the cancer diagnosis. You can deny that it shows what it shows. I guess you're going to deny what I think I've shown because in any group there are bound to be a few bad apples. But you know what? A few bad apples ruin the bunch if you can't remove them. The bad apples are inheriting the psUMC because they wouldn't leave and the leadership wouldn't make them.
Of course, I could be wrong. I will keep watching. I'll admit it if in 10 years the UMC is a functional body, no longer railing against its own members. But in the meantime, it's like I saw some faulty circuitry right next to some wood chips, folks didn't like me pointing it out, I finally left because it was a disaster waiting to happen, and folks are getting mad at me for it. I don't think it's a loving thing to say nothing while I leave. Whether or not people subjectively experience what I've said as love doesn't matter very much to me. I just care how God sees it, as I made clear in my post. But selfishly, I do hope that someday you do see that my warning was issued in love.
Well said. The truth is the truth. There is not your truth and my truth. Just as the over concern about "being on the right side of history" should instead be "the right side of Jesus" which is where I prefer to be.