What’s Going On (by Pastor Chris) September 2018


What’s Going On (by Pastor Chris)

I write you today because I have begun to receive questions regarding the changes that have been proposed by the larger United Methodist Church concerning human sexuality. At the 2016 General Conference (the large gathering of United Methodists from all over the world that sets the policy for the United Methodist church,) there was a call from the floor for the bishops to help us find a way forward on our disagreements over the issues of homosexuality. The answer the bishops brought was the creation of a commission to study this issue called the “Commission on the Way Forward.” This group was designed to bring many different points of view and to present options to the Council of Bishops for them to present to a special General Conference that will be held February 23-26th in St. Louis, MO.
This group has completed their work and presented it to the Council of Bishops. The Council has an option that they feel is best called the “One Church Plan.” There are two other plans that this group has presented but the truth is that any plan, not just the ones presented by the Commission on a Way Forward, can be presented at this special General Conference. There are a lot of intricacies to these plans that I cannot express in this short article. I will tell you that there are many people expressing what they think these plans mean and what they do not. I want to let you know there is no consensus on neither what will or will not happen nor what result these changes will have in the church. Because this is so complicated, I want to propose that we have some open meetings/times of prayer for our larger church where I will present the various pieces of these plans. I will be putting out some sign-ups to see if people would like to learn more about this issue in a calm and prayerful manner. I also would like to know what times work best so that we can make the most of our time together. And if there is enough interest, we will set these meetings.  As always I am happy to answer your questions as they come, but I will tell you that I will prefer to set a time to talk with you as I feel the best way to talk about these changes are in a prayerful conversation face to face.
So with all of that, what do we do? The best thing for us to do is to be the church. This is one issue in our larger church family, but this is nothing new in the church—we have seen it in our study of the book of Acts. The best thing for us to do is to pray for our church and its leaders and to continue to follow our mission to be and make disciples of Jesus Christ.   As always feel free to contact me if you have any questions via e-mail at chris@trinitychurchum.org or by calling the church office.


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