Our Pastor suggested that finding a new church may be our family’s best option after our church separated from the United Methodist denomination.

DISCLAIMER

Before you read this post, you should know that I am an ardent supporter of the freedom of association, the freedom of religion, and the separation of Church and State. I believe that every church, place of worship, etc. should be free to establish the belief structure that best represents their faith, theology, and the membership of the church (the congregation). Also.. thanks to Gary and Trent for providing advice, counsel, and prayers.

THE END IS THE BEGINNING

On March 30th, 2023, I received an email reply from our pastor. This message was the culmination of a respectful conversation that took place over several months via email and multiple in person meetings. The last line of his email stated…

Based on the exuberant welcome that we received from the membership upon visiting, would our congregation decide to bestow that “blessing” on our family? This post is my written thoughts on that topic…

PREQUEL

Prior to reading this post, you may want to consider reading an earlier post about my church via the link below. It will provide clarification on my feelings from the past regarding Ebenezer Methodist Church.

For the last several years, Joe and I have attended and been members of Ebenezer Methodist Church (EMC), formerly known as Ebenezer United Methodist Church (EUMC). We began attended prior to having kids, joined the church several years ago, and have continued attending with our sons.

Prior to joining Ebenezer UMC, our pastor (Glenn) came over to our house, and explained how he and the church felt about us joining the church. We were welcome to become members but were told that the church followed the United Methodist Book of Discipline, did not recognize our marriage and did not perform same sex marriages at Ebenezer, but Glenn loved everyone and everyone was welcome. Since Ebenezer was a church within the United Methodist Church denomination (UMC), we knew the church’s position on same sex marriage prior to visiting, so this came as no surprise. I appreciated Glenn coming over to our kitchen table and having the conversation with us face to face. We still went forward and became members.

When we first visited Ebenezer, we realized there were other folks “like us.” After our initial visit, we met “Santa.” The gentleman that has played Santa at Ebenezer for as long as anyone can remember has been with his husband for a long time and an active member of Ebenezer. Santa and his husband often attended church together and their relationship was not a secret. The church had welcomed them into the congregation well before Joe and I showed up. We also met another incredibly kind woman in the church that identified as lesbian and was also not secretive about her status. It was widely known in the church whom she was dating. While Ebenezer followed the United Methodist Book of Discipline, it was clear that Ebenezer was very welcoming and should the congregation be offered the chance to change their beliefs to be more in favor of recognizing same sex marriage(s), there would be multiple supportive members. At the very least, there would be enough members of the church to justify a conversation about a change in beliefs, regardless of whether that led to an actual change.

If you haven’t been to a small town church, I would encourage you to do so! Ebenezer is the definition of a small town, friendly, welcoming church. If allowed to go on without guardrails, our “passing of the peace” (get up and say hey to everyone during the service) would continue on indefinitely… Thanks to our pianist for knowing when to “cue the music.”

THE QUESTION(s)

Kids have a wild imagination and as I have learned, often have a tendency to fire off some pretty serious questions. As our boys continue growing into young men, they are beginning to ask more tough questions. While our oldest son and I were sitting at the dinner table together a few months ago, he asked several of those tough questions seemingly out of no where..

Son: Why didn’t you and daddy get married at Ebenezer?

Me: **long pause prior to answering** Well… when daddy and I met and decided to get married, we didn’t attend Ebenezer. We attended another Methodist church in Atlanta… and even if we wanted too, we could not get married at Ebenezer… **As soon as I said this, I regretted it**

Son: **looking at me funny** Then why do we go to church there?

Me: That’s a great question buddy, we will need to chat about that another day.

His questions, my answers, and both of our reactions began a cascade of thoughts that have focused on:

If Ebenezer is not willing to discuss recognizing our marriage and therefore, does not recognize our family, is this the church for us? What example will our decision set for our sons?

THE BUSINESS OF CHURCH BELIEFS

All church’s have some “guardrails” when it comes to beliefs; otherwise, you can believe anything and it be considered ok. This would cause spiritual chaos! Having guidelines helps to organize the church and its membership around an agreed upon set of beliefs. As a member of the public, this means you can’t walk into a Jewish Synagogue and expect to hear the Lords Prayer (Methodist), etc. If you join a Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, etc. church, you should agree to those beliefs prior to joining or at least agree with most of the ones that concern you and your faith. If you do not agree with the majority of their beliefs, you should find another church. This is the central reason there are a thousand and one churches from which to choose. In the event the congregation changes its beliefs, members must choose whether to stay or go. When a church changes beliefs, it gets very messy and and has caused divisions in individual churches and denominations throughout history.

In general, if a church is part of a larger faith or denomination (Catholic, United Methodist, Baptist, etc.), the denomination has an established set of beliefs that is published in written format, voted on every few years at a gathering of denominational leaders, and passed down to the churches that make up the denomination. The United Methodist Church’s beliefs are published in “The United Methodist Book of Discipline” and the last revision of those beliefs was published in 2016. When a church is independent (aka non-denominational), it establishes a set of beliefs, publishes those beliefs, drafts a set of protocols for how those beliefs are discussed, and possibly changed in the future by a congregational vote. Essentially, every independent church is its own democracy and is in control of “what we believe.”

THE EVOLVING EBENEZER

When Ebenezer United Methodist Church (EUMC) voted to leave the United Methodist (UMC) denomination in 2022, it became Ebenezer Methodist Church (EMC). The primary reason EUMC voted to leave was due to aggressive progressive leadership within the United Methodist denomination. This aggression was demonstrated in the denomination threating to “take back” church assets, buildings, land, etc. of those churches that did not “fall in line” with the new beliefs being pushed or soon to be pushed out to the local churches. Given the current legal hierarchy of the UMC, this “taking back” would have been well within the legal structure of the UMC and was not up for challenge. As a result, EUMC paid around $70,000 to the Methodist Denomination and became EMC. This allowed the church to remove the United Methodist Denomination from the legal structure of our church. Many local churches are being threatened with this type of aggression in Georgia and throughout the rest of he USA.

On December 5th, 2022, church leadership emailed out the recently drafted Beliefs and Governance Document of Ebenezer UMC for review by the congregation (see the embedded PDF below).

The last section of this document included the following excerpt:

Ebenezer Methodist Church, in addition to what is provided in this explanation of our Beliefs and Governance, adheres to the principles found in greater detail in the 2016 UMC Book of Discipline. Any member of Ebenezer can offer modifications to our Beliefs and Governance by providing a written request. Each request will first be reviewed by the Lay Leaders and Pastor. If approved, it will go to the Admin Council for consideration before facing a final vote at Church Conference.

The B&G supersedes the referenced 2016 UMC Book of Discipline. In the event that there are inconsistencies between the B&G and the 2016 UMC Book of Discipline, the B&G is the governing document.

While Joe (my husband) and I were both in favor of the separation from the United Methodist Church and understood what was contained in the Book of Discipline, we were not in favor of adopting the entirety of the Book of Discipline for the newly formed EMC due to the following excerpts:

C) Marriage—We affirm the sanctity of the marriage covenant that is expressed in love, mutual support, personal commitment, and shared fidelity between a man and a woman. We believe that God’s blessing rests upon such marriage, whether or not there are children of the union. We reject social norms that assume different standards for women than for men in marriage. We support laws in civil society that define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. (pg. 111 of the 2016 UMC Book of Discipline)

G) Human Sexuality—We affirm that sexuality is God’s good gift to all persons. We call everyone to responsible stewardship of this sacred gift. Although all persons are sexual beings whether or not they are married, sexual relations are affirmed only with the covenant of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. (pg. 112 of the 2016 UMC Book of Discipline)

Since we were not in favor of adopting this as members of the church, I made the following recommendations as potential changes to the Beliefs prior to them being adopted by the congregation:

C) Marriage - We affirm the sanctity of the marriage covenant that is expressed in love, mutual support, personal commitment, and shared fidelity between two individuals. We believe that God’s blessing rests upon such marriage, whether or not there are children of the union. We reject social norms that assume different standards for women than for men in marriage. We support laws in civil society that define legal marriage.

G) Human Sexuality—We affirm that sexuality is God’s good gift to all persons. We call everyone to responsible stewardship of this sacred gift. Although all persons are sexual beings whether or not they are married, sexual relations are affirmed only with the covenant of a monogamous, legal marriage.

Several days after my email reply, I got a very respectful reply back from Pastor Glenn that included the following clarification which made sense:

When someone wants to make a suggestion for changes to our B&G, we will set up a time to meet with the Lay Leadership group and the pastor and have an open discussion. The Lay Leaders and pastor might decide to bring the question to other leaders and members of the church, do some additional research, and ask for follow-up meetings. Whatever the outcome of that meeting, or meetings, the Lay Leaders and pastor would provide a written response, whether accepting the changes in full, re-writing the suggestion, or deciding not to go forward.

If the Lay Leaders and pastor agree to amend Ebenezer's B&G, it would first go to the Church Council for approval, then the Church Conference (all the members of the church for a final vote.

If you would like to read the entirety of our email exchange from December 2022 thru March 2023, I am including it below. The most recent email is listed first.

After our initial email exchanges, Glenn asked to meet for lunch. During our lunch, Glenn shared many stories with me, and I with him. From my perspective, the main purpose for Glenn requesting this meeting was to gather more info about “why” I wanted to see a change in Beliefs. I also felt that his questions were designed to ensure that my request was a genuine and authentic personal request vs something that was politically motivated. I felt confident that Glenn got all the background he needed in order to better understand our family’s position and see this as a genuine request vs a political one.

After continued conversation via email, I asked Glenn if we could meet again, and we did so on Tuesday, March 28th. Since this conversation was going to be pivotal for my family, I took detailed notes. Most of our chat involved Glenn telling stories about his past and me telling stories about my past and present.

The attitude of our conversation was respectful and courteous, and Glenn prayed for us prior to departing. I had the following takeaways:

1. Ebenezer Methodist Church is a “… bible believing church…” and will continue to follow the Beliefs of the United Methodist denomination which does not approve of recognizing same sex couples.

2. Ebenezer’s lay leadership will not approve on asking the congregation if the membership is interested in discussing a change in beliefs, specifically surrounding same sex marriage.

3. Glenn recommended that we stay at Ebenezer and encouraged us to tell our son(s) that “people disagree and we’re going to have to work through this… different perspective.” We do not plan to tell our sons that our church has a different perspective and disagrees with our family.

After understanding the church’s official position, we (our family) have to make a decision. Do we push forward with encouraging a congregational conversation that could cause division in the church, do we find a new church, or do we stop going to church completely and worship in our own way at home?

THE WILL OF GOD FROM TEENAGERS

During our last in person chat, Pastor Glenn asked me… “On a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is all good and holy and 1, this is really not God's will. How comfortable are you that same sex or LGBT is blessed by God and OK?” My answer was immediate, “I'm not and I don't know.”

I do not claim and will never claim to know what God’s will is on most any subject and do not believe that anyone knows God’s will with 100% certainty. Those that claim to know God's will on same sex marriage are not speaking from a place of factual truth, only subjective or believed truth, and that’s ok, but that’s a far cry from the Will of God. I am married to my husband and plan to be until death separates us. We both take our marriage covenant seriously and are doing our best to demonstrate that to our kids. My beliefs tell me that our marriage and our family is “blessed by God,” but that does not mean that my beliefs translate into the factual Will of God. When I die, I will get to know whether I am considered a “good and faithful servant.”

After pondering this predicament, I have begun comparing our church to a late stage teenager or early 20-something year old kid. As a denominational church, we followed our parents rules (aka beliefs). We did not always agree with all of their rules, but the pain to change was not greater than the pain to stay the same until recently. When our congregation “rebelled” against our parents and their supervision, we moved out (aka separated from the denomination). Now that we are responsible for ourselves, we think we know everything, and might make some immature mistakes. These might include smoking a little proverbial pot, getting overly focused on a pretty shiny thing like a new building, and/or make some bad relationship decisions before we figure out what kind of life we want for ourselves and our future family. In order for Ebenezer to mature into adulthood, the congregation needs to have some uncomfortable conversations (quarter life crisis) to best determine its path forward for the current congregation, the community, and its future membership (aka the kids). Our family may be one of those bad relationship decisions but that should be up to the congregation to decide now that it can…

MY COMMON SENSE

Faith is good, Religion is bad!

I’ve heard the above line from many people over the years, including from our current pastor which is one of the main reasons I respect him. I have Faith that there is some sort of higher being but am coming to see this more as a calling or a way of life vs an actual entity. Do I believe that Jesus existed? YES. Do I believe that Adam and Eve were placed here by God to procreate humanity? NO. Since I do not believe, and factual history demonstrates, that the creation story is false, I have to question everything in the Bible.

For me, the Bible is a collection of stories that encourage beliefs… that’s it. Whether those beliefs are good, bad, righteous, unrighteous, moral, or immoral is subjective. For someone that wants to own slaves, they would feel righteous about the passages that encourage it. For those that disagree with gay marriage, they have morality in Leviticus and a few other passages to sling at will. When you view “following god” as a way of life vs an actual entity, you have a much better understanding of The Ten Commandments. I am still trying to figure this out, so do not think I have the “why am I here?” solved.

The greatest commandment outlined in the Book of Matthew is: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” If you objectify the "the Lord your God” as a a way of being based in treating others with love, respect, and having some guardrails for those relationships/interactions, it seems to make more common sense... At least for me.

We are continuing to attend church at Ebenezer, but have decided that we should visit some other churches in the coming weeks and months to investigate what is out there for our kids that will help them grow up with a similar sense of faith and morality for the modern time. I do not believe this will cause us to land at a Catholic, another Methodist, or any other denominational church or possibly any church for that matter. I love the way the physical church brings people together. The term "Ecclesia" (or Ekklesia) in Christian theology means a particular body of faithful people...  Latin ecclesia, from Greek ekklesia had an original meaning of "assembly, congregation, council", literally "convocation". Our boys and our family benefit from having an ecclesia to attend on a regular basis, we also love being a part and giving back as well. This would be the only reason that we would continue to attend any form of physical church, the frequent interactions and relationships we build with the people.

Every small town church has the “church grandmas.” We are very fortunate and humbled that at least one amazing grandma found her way into our boy’s lives from church. Having a strong, caring female presence isn’t something that Joe or I can replicate. This past Sunday, our boys got to better interact with another kid at our monthly church lunch; I could tell at least one of them had a friendly connection. Hopefully we can have him over soon to get muddy in the yard. Our boys have also grown to respect some of the older teenagers in the church, they’ve both served as kid sitters so that Joe and I can go on a date. I respect these young men and am happy that our boys have them as role models. Do these interactions mean that we will stay? I’m not sure but we will progress slowly. Regardless of what is decided, we do not take our decision to move to another church lightly.

“The Church” is at an important moment in history. People all over the world are unhappy, angry, vengeful, and unsatisfied with the world around them. They question their Church and their Governments, as well they should. The way in which our church’s envelop the current predicament of lost souls may better determine all of our outcomes.

I recall my dad, a long time Methodist Minister, saying something like “fear the minister that drives a white Mercedes.” There are a lot of folks riding around in proverbial “white Mercedes” firing drive-by-commandments at the idiot congregants hording around them. For now, I am going to take the Janis Joplin approach… I’m never going to ask “the Lord” to buy me a “Mercedes Benz,” “a color tv,” or a “Porsche,” but we have been able to get “a night on the town” because of the good people we met at our church.

For those interested, our Pastor and I will continue to chat regardless of where we attend church. Disagreements are only productive when the conversation progresses... To Be Continued…

If you want to have a constructive conversation about this or anything else, message me, and let's grab coffee or a beer.

Have a good one,

Dan