Remembering Rev. Dr. Charles L. Houston
October 21, 2024
Last night I found out my good friend and mentor Charles Houston passed away yesterday. Pastor Charles was the pastor at Statesboro First Methodist in 2006 when I was the interim youth director. I remained on staff as an intern and worked with Pastor Charles for another year.
Charles was the first pastor I saw up close as I considered what it meant to be a good pastor, leader, and preacher. It was by God’s providence I got to learn so much from him and his wife Elizabeth.
While I still have a ways to go to be refined it was even more so as a teenager working on the church staff. Charles was always graceful with my shenanigans and willing to look for opportunities to pay me back. There was one youth scavenger hunt he still owes me payback for.
I had talked briefly with Pastor Charles several weeks ago after I saw on facebook he and Mrs. Elizabeth had been in a car accident.
In a recent staff meeting at the church I pastor, we recently had prayed for Charles’ ministry as he was at Apalachee High School as the teachers returned after the school shooting there.
The past couple of days I reflected on some of the important moments I will remember about Pastor Charles.
He was there for me in one of my toughest moments
In late summer of 2006, I found out one of my parents was moving out and my family was going to look a lot different. Even though I was at college this was still very distressing.
I found this out on a Saturday afternoon. I don’t remember talking to anyone until I went to church the next morning.
The church had a prayer and communion service before we began the regular worship service. I went early and Pastor Charles was the first person I ran into. He could tell I was upset and asked what was wrong. He listened. We held hands and prayed. He served me communion. I don’t remember what he said. I do remember he was there and a means of God’s grace for me in a very hard moment.
Charles preached for me the day Luke was born
Even though I worked as a staff person for Charles for around 14 months I was around often in Methodist circles.
Early on in my pastoral ministry I was going to need someone to cover the Sunday my son was born. I was honored to have Pastor Charles fill my pulpit that morning.
The closing hymn this Sunday was Because He Lives. The bulletin prescribed the congregation to sing the first and the last verse. However, He made sure they sang the middle verse on the day Luke was born.
How sweet to hold a newborn baby,
And feel the pride and joy he gives;
But greater still the calm assurance:
This child can face uncertain days because He Lives!
It was a sweet touch to a special Sunday.
Charles Loved Serving Law Enforcement
As part of my time as a divinity student at Asbury Theological seminary we had to take a class called Mentored Ministry. We were to serve in an area outside of our church. Charles let me help serve at the International Conference of Police Chaplains conference he was helping lead. Charles lit up at this conference. He loved seeing pastors learn how to better serve law enforcement.
Charles really enjoyed serving law enforcement. He particularly enjoyed serving the Georgia State Patrol, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Natural Resources. He had a very strong, vibrant, and fruitful ministry called Caring Connection Chaplaincy.
Later on, while serving as chaplain for a local fire department, Charles was a resource I would lean on and call when I had questions handling tough situations. He helped me to get proper denominational credentialing so I could serve as a fire chaplain well.
Charles Loved People
Charles loved people. While his work with the police allowed him to serve law enforcement it also allowed him to come into contact with the people law enforcement served. Usually this meant some of the people were having the worst day of their lives.
One day at Statesboro First Methodist another youth staff member and I were called and told there was someone threatening they had a bomb with them inside the church. The other staff person and I were ready to go down stairs and combat this intruder. While we were creeping up behind the individual, Charles came around the corner and said hello to the person. Charles took them outside to talk with the person and the police. It was smooth, loving, caring, and Christ-like. He moved the person away from everyone and got them the help they needed with dignity.
I’m sad I will not see my friend again this side of heaven. I am grateful for the time we had together. I also realize these few snapshots are just a small part of the decades of years and thousands of people he came in contact with.
Thanks be to God for the life of the Rev. Dr. Charles L. Houston.
A Prayer for September 11th, 2023
September 11, 2023
I can still remember the details of the day so clear. As a young person it was the first time I had experienced such massive violence on a scale this large.
On reflecting today I felt it was appropriate to write a prayer. This is based on Isaiah 61:3. Feel free to join in my in praying this prayer or spend some time praying on your own as you reflect today.
A Prayer for September 11th, 2023
Lord, on this day we remember the shock, anxiety, and trauma.
We lament whenever this world can demonstrate so much death, suffering, and depravity.
God, we also remember those who ran toward the world collapsing in an effort to help.
Jesus, we remember the overflowing churches in the days that follow.
Father, be with all those who mourn on this anniversary.
Holy Spirit, remind us that you are still the God bestows
crowns of beauty instead of ashes,
oils of joy instead of mourning,
and garments of praise instead of heaps of despair.
In Jesus’ Name, AMEN.
Why is Methodism Splitting?
September 1, 2022
In 2022 thousands of United Methodists representing hundreds of churches have left their denomination and overseas the entire Bulgaria-Romania annual conference has departed and joined the newly formed Global Methodists Church. Still, if you were to ask the general church attender if my preceding sentence were true, they would probably say it was false.
There are many understandable reasons to not pay attention to what is happening at the denominational level. Yet, if you have not been paying attention you might be shocked about what is happening. Outside of Mark Tooley’s paywall blocked opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, and David Watson’s recent Firebrand article, I am not sure if I know of a succinct and clear summary.
Recently, I have had several people reaching out to me asking, “What has happened?” Here is my attempt to adding some clarity to the situation.
#1 We have had a breakdown in our ability to govern ourselves.
You will hear that the realignment has to do with human sexuality and this is absolutely a presenting symptom. However, the governance of the church is the main underlying issue. We have had debates about the issue on human sexuality since the formation of the United Methodist Church in 1968. Yet, what we never had was a broken covenant to the extent we do now.
Tim Keller talked about this in his interview with New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof has this to say about essential Christian beliefs having boundaries:
If I’m a member of the board of Greenpeace and I come out and say climate change is a hoax, they will ask me to resign. I could call them narrow-minded, but they would rightly say that there have to be some boundaries for dissent or you couldn’t have a cohesive, integrated organization. And they’d be right. It’s the same with any religious faith.
Tim Keller
While Keller was talking about wider basic Christianity, the same applies to any denomination.
Scott Kisker in Firebrand Magazine elaborates on church order when discussing how Methodism is broken:
The issues around sexuality are serious. They are serious because no reasonable reading of the prophetic material in canonical Scripture can successfully tease out God’s demands for sexuality from God’s demands for economic justice, treatment of the alien, or idolatry. They are of a piece. But even bracketing sex for the moment, order has become chaos. And the question that hangs is whether, without order (as without word or sacrament) there is even a church.
Scott Kisker in Firebrand Magazine
There needs to be agreed upon boundaries. While the United Methodist Church has these agreed upon in doctrine at the General Conference level, the practice of this doctrine and implementation has not remained consistent and led to trust issues.
#2a Trust Issues with Leadership.
I first heard this principle from Andy Stanley: In the absence of information you have to decide to fill it with trust or suspicion. For years we have had trust broken among United Methodists. I can remember watching the 2019 general conference and hearing that if the church upheld their historic teaching it would be a virus on the denomination. At an annual conference session this summer, during a laity address, the lay leader called those in their conference wanting to uphold church order “gestapo.” Then the conference still published the video that remains up today. As someone whose family fought the axis powers in WWII this seems mildly inappropriate.
In the Florida Annual conference trust was broken with the board of ordained ministry when the board tried to provisionally commission people who did not meet the agreed upon conditions in the Book of Discipline. Charges have now been filed against the bishop and the board of ordained ministry.
There are even trust issues about when a General Conference could enact change. As one document encouraging United Methodists to abide because, “Nothing in the Discipline can change until January 1, 2025, when any actions of the 2024 General Conference take effect.” Yet, the United Methodist Church website points a caveat that the author original author omitted*, “…unless specified to take effect at the close of General Conference…”
For churches wanting to leave (more on the process below) this puts enormous pressure on them when pastors are not giving clarity. As progressive UM pastor Rev. Jeremy Smith says.
Given that votes must be taken at annual conferences, local churches that want to disaffiliate will need to start the process this year (2022), and meet the 2023 annual conference deadlines.
Rev. Jeremy Smith
Even for conferences trying to extend the terms of paragraph 2553 (see more below) it’s unlikely they would be able to see a possible 2024 general conference and have time to meet deadlines before their 2024 local annual conference.
The third postponement of the 2020 General Conference session was another moment of suspicion and frustration for many. It even caused one member on the committee for General Conference to resign. There is understandable suspicion if there will even be a 2024 general conference. Confusion abounds about the date for the conference and if it would be a conference with the 2020 delegations or if a new delegation is elected that would reflect the continued U.S. decline and non-Western growth that tends to be theologically conservative.
The episcopal elections in November of 2022 have caused trust issues. This is in contradiction to our rule that episcopal elections can not happen except following a session of general conference. There is some concern that no conservative friendly bishops will be elected. Rev. Jeremy Smith says that, “the electors of those bishops will be members of the 2019 progressive and centrist wave.”
#2b Trust Issues about Property
Did you know your local United Methodist Church does not own its own property or bank accounts. All property is held in trust to the United Methodist Church. One article says this:
…means that if, at any point, it becomes clear the holder can no longer or chooses no longer to function as part of The United Methodist Church, it forfeits all rights to continue to hold the property, and the property itself and all other assets transfer to the denomination.
https://www.umc.org/en/content/ask-the-umc-what-is-the-united-methodist-trust-clause
That means even though you have taken care of, built up, and managed the property you do not own it. While I believe this was wise at one point, it has prevented churches from leaving who are better aligned in another denomination. It also has made it extremely expensive to leave if you have to pay for the property you already paid for. Imagine taking out a thirty year mortgage then at the end of the mortgage you have to pay the same value in cash or you lose the property.
However, for the first time there is a provision, in paragraph 2553, that allows for a very short window to leave. Most annual conferences have a process that allows a congregation to leave through 2023 based on decisions made at the special session of the 2019 general conference at a fraction of the cost.
Therefore, hundreds of congregations have decided to leave in 2022 with hundreds and possible thousands in 2023.
I respect local churches’ decisions. I know several communities in my area that can and should have packed post-separation UM churches and other expressions of methodism. My hope is that churches make decisions based on facts, conviction, and clarity on who God is calling them to be.
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* I had the opportunity to hear an early draft of this article and pointed out contradiction to one of the co-authors. I also had an email exchange showing them how this contradicted with the UMC website linked above.
David Donnan 