22 Thanks for 2022
December 22, 2022
Family disclaimer. I don’t hate my kids. There are tons of things I am proud of them for. I want to be cautious about sharing too much about them online.
#1 The Glennville Methodist Church. I love the church I serve. We have had an amazing year of revival. The leaders, the staff, and spiritual depth continue to bless me.
#2 The enneagram. I know, I know, I was one of those people who could not stand the enneagram and people talking about it like it was the second coming of Christ. Yet, I went back the The Enneagram Type 3: The Successful Achiever by Beth McCord. Something about me was more open to what the Ennegram revealed about me.
#3 The church I serve is aligning to a new denomination. Right now hundreds of Methodists are realigning into new denominations. I am grateful my church did the hard work of figuring out where they needed to be and took the steps to get there.
#4 Pokémon. One of my children really got into playing the card game Pokémon. I never played it growing up but I have really enjoyed learning something new. I am fairly certain we do not play it exactly right because we make up some unique house rules sometimes.
#5 The transitional leadership council of the Global Methodist Church. Until our convening conference there is a group of leaders from all over the world piloting the new denomination. We are fortunate to have Rev. Jay Hanson from South Georgia on this team. I also was able to reach out and talk to Rev. Dr. Hidde-Gregoy and Rev. Jessica LaGrone. Both were very passionate about their work on the team and gracious enough to take some time to talk with me.
#6 Recognized as an elder in the Global Methodist Church. Once my church officially became a member of the GMC I was recognized as an elder in the denomination. During worship the church recognized my new status. I even wrote a liturgy you can use if this happens to you. While I am recognized as an elder I still will be ordained by a GMC bishop in 2023
#7 I ran a half marathon. Well actually I ran a 10k on New Year’s day then in March I ran a half marathon. It was even sweeter to run with my father.
#8 NYC trip for my wife’s big birthday. My wife had a milestone birthday. We took a family trip to New York City for the occasion. It also was the first time my children went flying.
#9 Mackinac Island to visit my sister. My sister has worked several summers on Mackinac Island, MI. We went on our second family flying trip to visit my sister.
#10 Last Annual Conference with my South Georgia United Methodist Friends. I will truly miss getting to see everyone in my old company each summer. It was great to have one last time for us all to be together. While I have not been perfect I hope I have modeled how to leave with grace.
#11 Deep Dive Coaching with Brian Russell. Brian’s professional coaching has continued to add a ton of value to my relationship with God, family, and career. I am excited to be hosting him in 2023 for a prayer conference at my church.
#12 Doctor of Ministry Program. I am now closer to the end than the beginning. I am very grateful for Asbury Theological seminary and all my friends in the cohort with me.
#13 Birthday trip with my mom. As a child I was all about the Buccaneers. I had not been to a game since high school. For my mom’s birthday I took her to see Tom Brady before he retires.
#14 Family Cruise. We were grateful to go on a cruise over fall break. The kids loved it. I may have gotten leg cramps from trying to take the stairs only.
#15 Isle of Hope River of Life. In 2020 I was scheduled to speak at the Isle of Hope River of Life Youth conference… but something happened globally. This past summer I was finally able to speak there for four nights. It was a great time.
#16 Visits with Friends. I continue to be encouraged by a group of pastors that I meet with annually. A couple of visits that stand out were lifting weights with my buddy Ben and getting to hear my friend Jack preach at his church.
#17 Time with my wife. I love being able to get away with my wife. We had a couple of work trips that took us to Savannah and St. Simons. We also spent a couple of nights in Asheville, NC and Elberton, GA for some quick time away.
#18 Memorial Day Visit to my Grandparents grave. On Memorial Day we went to Anderson National Cemetery to visit the graves of my Granny and Grandpa. My grandpa was a WW2 B-29 tail gunner in the Pacific. It’s so meaningful to see the graves with the flags on them.
#19 Meeting Tara Beth Leach. I was so fortunate to run into one of the best preachers in North America at the New Room conference in Nashville, TN. Even better, she was very friendly and did an awesome job teaching.
#20 Spirit and Truth Weekend. I was blown away by a day of praying and learning at the Metter Methodist Church where they hosted the Spirit and Truth ministry team for several days of teaching on prayer. It once again showed me how powerful prayer is.
#21 Sharing with others about Jesus. I am honored to serve the people in the Glennville Methodist Church. I was also blessed to be able to teach at several places outside of my church. I spoke at chapel services at two private schools, led devotion at a nursing home, the first gathering of South Georgia Global Methodists, and spoke at an FCA event. All these events were fun and I hope I added value to people’s walk with the Lord.
#22 Sandra McDowell’s 60th Birthday. This past year we celebrated my mother-in-law, Sandra Sikes, turning 60. Sadly, she died suddenly just a few weeks later. Grief is a hard and strange thing. It’s so hard to believe she is not coming back for the kids’ next performance or birthday. I am grateful we got to celebrate her milestone birthday even though we are still having a challenging holiday celebrating our first Christmas without her.
Simple and Beautiful – A Spirit and Truth Renewing Experience
September 2, 2022
This past weekend I had an opportunity, along with a few of my church members, to attend a Spirit and Truth training event at Metter United Methodist Church (Metter, GA).
Spirit and Truth is “a movement of Wesleyan-minded Christians seeking to awaken and equip the 21st century church, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to share the Gospel and make disciples of Jesus Christ.”
We attended one of a several day renewal conference they were leading. The teaching that day was focused on evangelism and prayer. We had great leading and instruction from their team. We heard from Matt Reyonolds, president, Maggie Ulmer, director of education, and Tony Miltenberger, director of leadership and discipleship. There was great worship led by United Theological Seminary Chapel Dean, Tesia Mallory. It was a delight to meet Emma Winchester, the administrative coordinator who helped the day run smoothly.
After one of our exercises we had time to debrief. Metter United Methodist Pastor, Allen Cason, said something profound. He talked about what we, the church, need to do is “simple and beautiful.”
So often we try to come up with the perfect scheme on a white board or power point presentation (and I do love those). However, this weekend was a reminder how our means of God’s grace such as scripture, prayer, worship, and evangelism are sufficient enough for effective and fruitful ministry.
I can not recommend Spirit and Truth highly enough to come to your church or retreat. I only have one request: Let me know about it so I can come.
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.
_____
* 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 