I was born in 1981.  I grew up in a world where civil rights had already been won for African-Americans, and spent my entire childhood attending a public school that was predominantly Black.  I grew up in a world where women called to ministry could be ordained to it, and spent my entire childhood in a rural United Methodist Church where I had just as many female pastors as male ones.  It wasn’t until I was in college in the early 00’s that I really took seriously the experience of struggle it took to allow these rights that I had taken for granted. And it has become clearer with each passing year that the dreams cast by those who have gone before me require my willing participation now if they are to be realized.

50 years ago, a dream was cast by a different group of dreamers. The ecumenical movement was one where men and women of different denominations recognized the divisions in our culture could be challenged by the unity of the church in Jesus Christ. Several new denominations were created through prayer and careful merging.  The United Methodist Church was formed the same month that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.  Was their time less controversial and divided than ours now?

50 years ago, a dream was cast that we would work together in the power of the Holy Spirit to live into Jesus’ prayer in John 17:23: “I’m in them and you are in me so that they will be made perfectly one. Then the world will know that you sent me and that you have loved them just as you loved me.”  1939 had brought the merger of Methodist Protestants with the North and South Methodist Episcopal denominations.  The Evangelical Church had already merged with the United Brethren in 1946.

Neither merge was without setbacks, and given our sinful human nature, unity meant the people with less power and privilege ended up on the bottom.  

The 1939 Methodist merger resulted in the compromise known as the Central Jurisdiction, a gerrymandered version of Methodism where all non-white churches were placed under a different political and itinerant order…you know, separate but equal. Also, the ordained women in the Methodist Protestant denomination had to give up their clergy rights for the merger to be successful.  The denomination began working almost immediately to abolish the Central Jurisdiction and allow ordination of women, but it took a long time.

So as the 1968 Uniting Conference began, there was a lot of logistics to consider in merging the Methodist denomination with the EUB (which had Wesleyan roots).  As men and women entered the conference, they were met by African-American church members, holding signs quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., buried just two weeks before.  They were reminded that the church’s very political structure promoted the racism and segregation in society. The EUB church had historically been anti-slavery, and then anti-segregation, holding much closer to their Wesleyan roots than the actual Methodists on this issue.  The EUB would not merge if the Central Jurisdiction remained segregated from the white church.  Compromises and agreements were made, and The United Methodist Church was formed in 1968.

And now we are facing a called General Conference in February, 2019.  The United Methodist Church has become more and more divided over the interpretation of Scripture and the polity in our Book of Discipline regarding human sexuality.  The Council of Bishops has commissioned 32 people, representing all the stakeholders in these issues, to propose “A Way Forward,” (read about its purpose here) in the hopes that we can remain one denomination despite the tensions of our differences.  The Commission has now completed its final report and has sent two proposals to the Council of Bishops for review (read more here).

The two proposals are summarized like this:

ONE CHURCH MODEL

• The One Church Model gives churches the room they need to maximize the presence of United Methodist witness in as many places in the world as possible. The One Church Model provides a generous unity that gives conferences, churches, and pastors the flexibility to uniquely reach their missional context in relation to human sexuality without changing the connectional nature of The United Methodist Church.

MULTI-BRANCH: ONE CHURCH MODEL

• This model is grounded in a unified core that includes shared doctrine and services and one Council of Bishops, while also creating different branches that have clearly defined values such as accountability, contextualization and justice. The five U.S. jurisdictions would be replaced by three connectional conferences, each covering the whole country, based on theology and perspective on LGBTQ ministry (i.e. progressive, contextual, traditional branches). Annual conferences would decide which connectional conference to affiliate with; only local churches who choose a branch other than the one chosen by their annual conference would vote to join another conference.

While there are many groups within Methodism, currently the ones I think you should spend time learning about are The Uniting Methodists and the Wesleyan Covenant Association. Especially if you are clergy or a ministry leader in the denomination, take time to learn the language and the points of disagreement, why some people think staying together is better while others think splitting up is better.  Take time to celebrate with your congregation the 50th anniversary of The United Methodist Church (resources here).  Take time to pray for your leaders, for the bishops, for those who will participate in the 2019 Conference.  Be a non-anxious presence about what is coming, but stay informed.  

The Sage says there is “a time for planting and a time for uprooting what was planted” (Eccles 3:2). I do not know what is best for The United Methodist Church next year, but I hope and pray that the way we talk to one another, the way we resolve our differences, and the way we move forward all serves as a witness to our culture that Jesus Christ is alive and at work here and now.