Anyone following the numerous news articles and opinion pieces concerning possible separation within the United Methodist Church faces a daunting task. The floodgates are open and information and opinions are flowing fast. As I considered the numerous pieces it occurred to me that having a systematic approach to mentally catalog the writings would be helpful. …
Conventional wisdom appears to be that the proposed Protocol legislation is sacrosanct. I’m not privy to the inner working of the “Group of 16”, i.e. the signatories to the Protocol; however, reading the actual Protocol leaves me with the opinion that the proposed Protocol Legislation may be amended. How did I reach this conclusion?…
In response to yesterday’s post concerning the 100 Local Church threshold, found here, I received an e-mail with the following observation: “I would guess that the Protocol is so structured because Wesleyan Covenant has the 100 church threshold and is actively creating their own Book of Discipline.” At first blush this seems like a plausible…
If one of the goals of the Protocol is to create a simple and quick way to allow votes for separation, one of the areas of the Protocol legislation that appears to frustrate this goal is the mission critical role assigned to Local Churches. This post examines and analyzes their role and explains why the…
In this post I discussed some of the potential pitfalls in the Protocol’s plan for “Conditional Qualification” of new denominations by the Council of Bishops found in the protocol at proposed ¶2556 2. Since the Plain Grace Plan also proposes to use the Council of Bishops as part of the process of creating new…
A few weeks ago I was at the Pre-Conference Briefing organized and conducted by United Methodist Communications. I wrote a short post here but shortly after returning from the briefing I came down with the flu and life got in the way of additional posts. This is a follow on post. Most of…
Since the Protocol was first announced, numerous writers and speakers have approached the issue of separation from various perspectives. Some writers focus on theological issues addressing unity and separation and advance positions based on their theological perspective. To me, the two theological positions in tension are Christ’s call for unity in the universal church…
Yesterday was Day 1 of United Methodist Communications Pre-Conference Briefing. I’ll share a few random initial thoughts and questions; but, I’ll ask readers to bear in mind that initial impressions aren’t a substitute for reflection and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The gathering yesterday was reminded that there are about 100 days left…
About six months ago, as I was starting to blog, I asked someone I respected for potential blog topics. His answer was striking and proved prescient by recent events. He suggested: “Write a blog that answers the question, ‘We won, why should we leave?’” Since that time I’ve thought a lot about that question. With…
Last Friday news broke that the Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation (“the Protocol”) had been agreed to by sixteen prominent leaders of the United Methodist Church. Like others, my initial thoughts turned to what this meant for “the big church”, i.e. the denomination. On Saturday I posted a blog with my initial thoughts….
Over the weekend I’ve been hand cutting mortises into some 4×4 timbers for a project I’m working on. I’ve talked to farmers who are old enough to remember time they spent plowing behind a mule. They invariably talk about the time they had to think about things as they followed the mule down the row. …
It’s been several months since I’ve posted here. I decided to hold off posting about proposed plans until the negotiating group formed by Bishop Yambusa had been given an opportunity to complete their work. At the initial stages, there was no assurance that their work would bear fruit; it was certainly possible that the negotiations…
I’m not an optimist by temperament or training. Given the current state of the United Methodist Church, it appears that the news filtering out across the denomination is creating more despair than hope, especially in the United States. As I read about the events of the past few weeks it’s almost as…
This is the first in a series of posts that will offer thoughts about the United Methodist Church Next Generation Plan. This post focuses on an overview of the plan and an analysis of Petition 1, the petition calling for a special Session of the General Conference. The Overview Somewhere between the…
I’ve had a number of comments and inquiries concerning the Plain Grace Plan. I thank all of you. I’m exploring the possibility of hosting some video conferences explaining the Plain Grace Plan for those who might be interested. The format will be a session with 5-7 people participating. The agenda would be a…
In this prior post I referred to a recent estimate, attributed to Rev. Adam Hamilton that “between 3,400 and 7,500 churches across the U.S. will leave the UMC by this time next year.” I’ve also previously referred to a blog post by the Rev. Shane Bishop entitled “We Want Out!” (the loudest voice the…
I received two e-mails yesterday that resulted in today’s post. The first e-mail was short and to the point: “Interesting posts. But, who are you?” When I first read the e-mail I wondered if this was sarcasm. E-mails lack inflection, so “But, who are you?” could mean “But, who do you think you are…
During the years I practiced law I heard many truisms. One I remember concerned insurance policies. It goes like this: “The large print giveth, the fine print taketh away.” Insurance policies give the policy holder rights, those rights are always in large print. The policy also includes exclusions and limitations which constrain the rights…
In one of my first posts I mentioned former New York Times columnist Russel Baker. That post, entitled Don’t Believe Everything You Read on the Internet can be found here. Baker wrote a series of columns that I believe were entitled, ”Things I Found on the Way to Looking Up Something Else”. Each column…
Gracious Affiliation as a Part of Full Communion I recently wrote a post discussing why a Full Communion Agreement is used in the Plain Grace Plan (“PGP”). That post can be found here. As that post noted, many people have a reflexive negative reaction to the idea of being in “Full Communion” with a…
