The battle between Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas and its regional governing body in The United Methodist Church may boil down to whether large and small churches in the denomination can continue to operate by the same governing rules.
At a town hall meeting held in an overflowing Wesley Hall at the North Dallas church Wednesday night, church leaders reportedly said large churches like HPUMC cannot realistically abide by all the demands of the UMC’s Book of Discipline. The reason is there are practical differences in the way smaller or mid-size churches operate compared to megachurches.
Among about 30,000 UMC congregations, fewer than 50 report weekly attendance of 2,000 people or more, the definition of a “megachurch” created by Hartford Institute for Religion Research. HPUMC is believed to be the second-largest UMC congregation in the United States, with weekly attendance of about 4,300 people.
The context
Not only that, but the North Dallas church is property rich with an expansive set of Gothic-inspired buildings adjacent to the campus of Southern Methodist University. The church’s location at the intersection of Hillcrest Road and Mockingbird Lane puts it among some of the most expensive real estate in Dallas County.
Like megachurches in other denominations, the denomination needs the church more than the church needs the denomination. This has more dramatic implications in the UMC, though, than in more disconnected denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention. According to UMC polity, the denomination holds all church property “in trust” and has the power to appoint clergy and demand conformity with governing rules.
Faced with a wave of discontent in the UMC from 2018 forward, larger churches like HPUMC began to take stock of their legal standing in case the denomination swung one way or the other in the fight over LGBTQ inclusion.
Matt Tuggle
Amid that context, the senior pastors and a few top lay leaders of HPUMC changed the church’s governing documents to loosen official ties with the denomination while outwardly still presenting as a fully cooperating UMC church. The circle of who knew about the changes was so small that most staff members didn’t know, the congregation at large didn’t know, other UMC pastors in the area didn’t know and the bishop of the regional conference didn’t know.
From one perspective, this was prudent protection of the church’s assets in case of conflict. From another perspective, it silently laid groundwork to leave the denomination.
Yet the discovery of these changes now threatens to do the very thing both sides say they don’t want: Break the ties between the UMC and HPUMC. Since the bishop of the Horizon Texas Conference of the UMC filed a civil lawsuit against the church, the Church Council on Aug. 20 passed a resolution declaring it “no longer recognizes ecclesiastical authority of the bishop and conference to direct the church or its clergy.”
“In Methodist polity, that’s a declaration of war. It is a threat to secede from the union.”
In Methodist polity, that’s a declaration of war. It is a threat to secede from the union.
According to Senior Minister Matt Tuggle and his two pastoral predecessors, none of this would be a problem if the bishop would just leave things alone and trust them to be loyal members of the denomination. According to the bishop, he has a fiduciary responsibility to protect the church and its assets for the denomination.
The bishop’s video
In a video released just moments before the Aug. 26 town hall meeting, Bishop Ruben Saenz appealed to HPUMC members: “I’m not making this video as your adversary. I’m making it as your bishop, and I have grieved over what has unfolded these past few weeks more than most of you know.”
The point, he says, is that “none of us owns Highland Park United Methodist Church; Jesus Christ is ahead of the church, not the bishop, not the senior pastor, not the Church Council. For just a season, we are God’s steward of something that generations before us built faithfully and generations after us will inherit. The stewardship requires accountability, it requires transparency, it requires safeguards that protect the voice of the congregation when decisions of great consequence are being made about the future of the church.”
Ruben Saenz
The church’s governing documents “were changed in ways that removed important United Methodist accountability, shifted significant authority to the Church Council and changed how decisions about the future of this church could be made,” he explained. “And I want to set the record straight about how we arrived at this moment because pursuing legal action is not a decision I take lightly.”
The story diverges
The next part of the story is where things get told differently from one side than the other. The bishop claims he was in conversation with church leaders for nine months discussing his concerns about the change once they became known.
The denomination “sought a resolution but we were never presented with a proposal that restored Highland Park’s governing documents to alignment with the Book of Discipline,” he said.
Tuggle and elected lay leaders tell a different story and believe the bishop was filing legal action against them even as they thought they were still negotiating. What’s clear is that both sides would not budge: The church wanted more autonomy than the Book of Discipline allows, and the bishop wanted more accountability than the church was willing to give.
“My hope remains restoration — restoration of the governance to United Methodist order in accordance with the Book of Discipline, restoration of the safeguards and voice of the congregation and restoration of the relationship that has connected Highland Park and the United Methodist Church for generations,” he said in the video.
The big question
BNG did not attend the Wednesday night town hall meeting but did collect firsthand reports from those present. The meeting reportedly included more detailed narratives about the pastor’s interactions with the bishop and reiterations of all the ways the church has served the denomination and community through the years.
The big question left only vaguely answered is why church leaders decided to make these changes in 2022 and not tell anyone what they had done. The timing would suggest a clear connection to the internal struggles of the UMC and leaving them open to disaffiliation if needed.
“The big question left only vaguely answered is why church leaders decided to make these changes in 2022 and not tell anyone what they had done.”
Local Dallas news commentator Jim Schutze has been chronicling the church dispute closely and recently offered this summary: “This whole business of Highland Park United? Methodist Church changing its governing documents is going to wind up in a very interesting court debate about the real estate. … On the face of it, the church owns its very valuable and expensively built-out campus. But the history of that land and the surrounding SMU campus is a tangled web. Questions raised in the suit suggest the possibility of a denominational trust, even a reversion clause or other deed restriction that might benefit the United Methodist Church Conference.”
And legally, past loyalty to and financial support for the denomination might not be persuasive in a court of law, he suggests: “All this butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth hymn-singing from HPUMC leadership about their religious reasons for changing the docs in secret may go up in smoke if it turns out they were just trying to shelter their real estate from the bishop. That’s what Ricky the Playboy does with his yacht when he’s worried his wife may go for a divorce.”
Here’s an interesting point to note: To date, there are no other UMC clergy in the Horizon Texas Conference jumping up to defend HPUMC against their bishop. Is that because they fear the bishop or because they agree with him?
Local political consultant Clayton Henry posted his thoughts about the situation on Facebook, and I think he’s got a point: “Highland Park United Methodist Church may ultimately be remembered not simply for resisting a lawsuit, but for forcing the denomination to confront a much larger question: Can Methodism preserve its connectional heritage while giving local churches the freedom and accountability necessary to thrive in the 21st century?”
Mark Wingfield
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He is the former associate pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church, which is located about 4 miles down Mockingbird Lane from HPUMC.
Related:
Lawsuit asks, ‘What does it take to be a good United Methodist church?’ | Analysis by Mark Wingfield
UMC sues Dallas church for making unilateral governance changes